Teenage Concussion
Recovery
If a concussion is serious, a doctor might send you to a hospital, but in most cases recovery happens at home. Recovery usually means getting plenty of rest and avoiding some activities. What you can and can't do depends on your concussion, but you might have to stay home from school or limit the schoolwork and homework you can do. Along with this you should take some time off sport to prevent further injury during your recovery.
Here are some important parts the recovery process.
Communication
Communication is an important part of the recovery process. Proper communication ensures that medical professionals can help you which your unique injury. Along with this, it also helps friends and family understand what help you need to recover (more information can be found on our Support page). However, communication can be a difficult part of recovery because of symptoms. Because of this, talking in person, one-to-one can be much easier than texting or taking part of conversations in large group. It is also best to reduce time on social media.
Planning
Planning can be very helpful when recovering from a head injury. If you can take 10 minute to sit down (with a parent) and plan each day in the morning it will make recovery much easier. This day-to-day planning is particularly important if you are off school or only going part time. By planning you are making sure that you are not spending too much time on cognitive tasks and have plenty of breaks. To start off you might want to take time to have a sleep or rest during the day. However, while this sort of planning can be helpful, you should try not to have any long-term plans, such as parties or trips. These sorts of plans can feel like deadlines for recovery, instead it is best to see how you feel on the day.
Activities
Despite what you may think, there are all sorts of activities that are concussion friendly. What activities you can and can’t do greatly depends on your symptoms. Audiobooks, crafts and cooking are a good start from which you can move to flicking through magazines, re-reading familiar books, listening to music (no headphones) doing puzzles and watching small amounts of TV. Along with this inviting friends over one at a time can be a good way to keep connected. Exercise is also super important but make sure to start small. With any activity, it is important to make sure that you are allowing yourself breaks and never spending too much time doing one thing.
Returning
Returning to sport and school should be a gradual process. For high school, it is easiest to return to a reduced number of subjects (such as just English and Art) and so fewer hours at school, rather than trying to rotate through subjects. This is because it means you will not have to catch up on as many different topics. Make sure you only return to subjects that you find easiest and have the least number of resulting symptoms from. Returning to sport is important too but it to should be done slowly, start with symptom specific exercises (like balance) and then general fitness (such as running on a treadmill). Make sure that any exercise does not induce symptoms. From then you can start sport specific activities, before being signed off by a medical professional to return to sport.
