Concussion treatments all over the map
doctors at Allegheny General Hospital’s Concussion Center. Soon, it was clear he wasn’t getting better.
“I can’t be hurt, I need to be cleared to play next week,” Jack remembered thinking. “I really strained myself to pass these tests.
“I didn’t follow doctor’s orders.”
He tried light exercise such as jogging to speed recovery, but it gave him severe headaches. He was prescribed a medication for the headaches, but the medication caused his heart to race and caused him to have nightmares.
Finally he rested. In a few weeks, he was off the prescription medication and back to school, symptom free. Recovery from a second concussion in January went smoothly because he avoided visual and mental stimulation, sometimes even resting in a dark room, he said.
“For both of my concussions, the only helpful thing was rest,” Jack said. “And I hate rest. Resting was really difficult, but it’s the only way.”
Even among those prescribing rest, no one knows how long to rest after suffering a concussion before restarting activity — a week, a month?
“Concussions are like snowflakes, no two are alike,” said sports medicine researcher Kevin Guskiewicz, who is also dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina. “We have to be careful not to assume that one person will recover the same as someone else who has the same kind of injury.”
Clinical trials are just now getting underway to determine the appropriate amount of time to wait before initiating light exercise, according to John Leddy, a sports medicine physician and medical director of the University of Buffalo Concussion Management Clinic.
With National Football League funding, UPMC last October hosted the first-ever seminar focusing on concussion treatments. The goal is to create a framework for the kind of protocols that are used to treat other medical problems, Mr. Collins said. The framework will appear in an upcoming medical journal.
Concussion care at UPMC is tailored to the patient, not a one-size-fits-all, Mr. Collins said. UPMC groups concussions into specific kinds of injuries, then develops individualized treatment plans for each patient.
Widespread changes