Findings from a new study explore this question
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Kids can get head injuries in any number of ways, and a recent study explored how recovery differs when a concussion is a result of a sports injury versus non-sports related.
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The researchers learned that kids who undergo concussions unrelated to sports injuries are likely to take longer to get full clearance to resume normal activities.
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The findings also showed that childrens age and gender may impact their overall concussion recovery time.
A new study conducted by researchers from Childrens Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) explored the recovery time for kids who undergo non-sports-related concussions.
Their findings: its not one-size-fits-all. There are several factors that can influence concussion recovery for kids, including age and gender.
The purpose of this study was to determine if, depending on different factors, there is any difference in time to clearance when a concussion resolves and a child can go back to everyday activities like school and sports, researcher Jonathan Santana, DO, said in a news release. We looked specifically at sports-related versus non-sports related concussions and considered age and gender as variables.
One thing that I and other sports medicine physicians have seen is that kids who sustain a concussion via sports seem to get better quicker than kids who dont. We wanted to confirm if this was supported by evidence.
The study
The researchers analyzed the medical histories of patients treated for non-sports-related concussions at CHLA. The study included data on 104 concussion patients 43 males and 61 females between the ages of 6 and 20.
The team analyzed the patients symptoms and how that impacted their clearance for return to day-to-day activities.
What impacts concussion clearance?
The study found that children who had concussions unrelated to sports were likely to take longer to receive full clearance from their doctors.
Heres how the numbers broke down:
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On average, kids involved in the study received clearance from their concussions after 65 days.
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Those whose concussions were unrelated to sports received clearance after 91 days.
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Those whose concussions were related to sports received clearance after 54 days.
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Kids whose concussions werent related to sports were also more likely to report lingering symptoms at 30, 60, and 90 days post-injury.
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Age and gender impacted recovery time: Older kids recovered from concussions faster than younger kids, while male patients recovered faster than female patients.
What do these findings mean?
Dr. Santana explained that these findings might influence how doctors treat concussions moving forward.
We normally try not to treat concussions differently if they are sports related or not, but since this data shows that non-sports concussions tend to involve prolonged recovery, maybe we can be more aggressive in rehabilitation strategies with those patients, Dr. Santana said in the news release.
Posted: 2025-06-13 18:09:28
