Curr Sports Med Rep. 2018 Aug;17(8):262-270. doi: 10.1249/JSR.0000000000000505.
Exercise is Medicine for Concussion.
Leddy JJ, Haider MN, Ellis M, Willer BS

This article was chosen as a way to see how I could have possibly educated the patient I described in Rotation 1 – H&P. The patient may have suffered a concussion, where the standard of practice is to advice patients to rest. This article challenges this old belief, believing that the brain may be more susceptible to another injury or the worsening of symptoms if it were too stressed with activity. However, new research presented within this literature review showed that strict rest may actually prolong the symptomatic recovery time of concussion patients. It described how moderate physical activity performed within the first week of injury may help to decrease the post-concussive symptoms. This was supported with the fact that aerobic exercise has the ability to decrease cognitive impairment by helping neuron growth, function improvement and repair, as well as increasing the brain’s neuroplasticity.

According to this article, I could have given this patient an exercise prescription. I would encourage them to participate in low to moderate intensity exercise, where they should stop when symptoms are exacerbated. This exercise should be done with gradual increase of intensity or length of time, for 6-7x/week.

It is said that the sooner this aerobic exercise is started, the faster will be the patient’s recovery. Additionally, the patient’s “exercise intolerance” can be used as an indication that the patient has suffered a concussion. Then, when there is a “normalization of exercise tolerance”, this can be used as a sign that the patient has recovered.