Answer:

I mean, there’s lots of ways to approach that. I always put it in the same point I stress with these kids. I do want them back in the school setting. It’s when we talk about light cognitive activity, I don’t think that there has to be a limit on what we’re trying to do with the brain in school. I let kids do complex things, but I stress with them when I see in the office that we have to remember the brain’s not working on all cylinders right now. So, we have to allow for that. And a lot of kids have a lot of impatience with the fact that their brain’s just not processing things at full speed. So, if they give it some time, they can probably get to answers and they probably can get to some solutions. There’s just a lot of kids just like, “I just give up, I can’t figure this out,” so move on.

So I stress with them, you’ve got to account for the fact that it’s going to take extra time to do work. You got to account for the fact that your brain’s not working on a hundred percent right now. And you may need to take a little bit more time. You may need to reread things a couple of times for it to stick, but it can get there. And again, like we talk about with physical activity, we want to make it symptom-limited. So, if things are making things tremendously worse, we take a break. It’s okay to still use the brain and come back to it. It’s healthy for it to do that. It’s not harmful to do that.

I use an analogy a lot in my office to patients is, we learned a long time ago that the approach to getting people better who had chronic back pain was not bed rest. We learned that that was extremely harmful for people and it didn’t get them better. It was actually getting them moving around and getting physical therapy going on those individuals and actively making those things get better. And we have to have that same sort of approach and mentality for the brain. We can’t shy away from saying, “Oh, I can’t do any schoolwork at all because it’s going to hurt my brain more.” Again, I’ve never seen a kid come into my office with a concussion from doing too much schoolwork.”

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RESOURCES & LINKS:

• This Q&A is an excerpt from the Concussion Health Summit Sessions
• The Concussion Health Summit Sessions are included with 360NeuroGO Enterprise

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FACULTY:

Mark Halstead, MD

Dr. Halstead is team physician to Washington University, Francis Howell and Timberland High School and consults with several other local high schools for concussion care. He serves as a medical consultant to the St Louis Blues. He was a team physician for 11 seasons for the St Louis Rams, formerly served as assistant medical director to the Go! St Louis Marathon and has been a medical director for the MO Cowbell Marathon. He currently serves on the Sports Medicine Advisory Committee for the Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA). He was the lead author of the AAP clinical report on “Sport-Related Concussions in Children and Adolescents” published in 2010 and revised in 2018 and also was the lead author of the AAP clinical report on “Returning to Learning after a Concussion.”

Bridgett Wallace, PT, DPT

Bridgett Wallace, PT, DPT, has a doctorate of physical therapy and holds competency-based certifications in vestibular rehabilitation and concussion management. Dr. Wallace has been treating patients with dizziness and balance disorders for more than 20 years and is the founder and President of 360 Balance & Dizziness – a specialty clinic for the evaluation and treatment of dizziness and balance disorders that includes both audiology and therapy services. She is also the co-founder and Director of Clinical Education for 360 Neuro Health Institute, which provides online, mobile and live educational offerings for health care providers.