The importance of sticking to the Return to Play Guidelines
Bowen Therapy works exceptionally well at accelerating the resolution of concussion symptoms. So well in fact that a few athletes will rush their Return To Play stages in an effort to get back to playing as soon as they can. This can be problematic if there are not any trainers working with a team. My most recent experience with this happened earlier this week.
Rugby player in his early 20’s, a university student came to see me after experiencing concussion symptoms for about 6 days. The day of his first session he felt amazing, a slight headache in the morning the next day and then symptom free. He was able to concentrate, study and write an essay with no residual symptoms. Fabulous! I always bring my athletes in for a follow up. Session 2. Textbook. No symptoms. He asks the question “When can I play?”. My response is as usual “Follow up with your team trainer for your RTP protocol.”.
The next day I got the call. He felt so good (yay!) that he decided to run. And weight lift. And do drills. The same day of the second treatment. Yikes! The trainer wasn’t at the club that night. The next day he had his headache return abut was gone by the time I brought him in for a ‘reset’. That was a huge lesson for me as the therapist. I cannot always assume that the trainer is available to the athletes. Because of this, all my athletes in the future will leave the office with the RTP guidelines whether or not they have an AT to work with. It’s only happened a couple of times, but more than I prefer. This young athlete needs to start his RTP over again and will miss the game he was eagerly anticipating. Lesson learned on both ends.
*I always recommend waiting 24 hours between stages for the best assimilation of the therapy. Of course, there will always be people who rush the stages and are fine and others where it sets them back. When Bowen is applied within 48 hours of the initial injury the majority of athletes have a healthy, progressive recovery and are often passing all stages of RTP.
Here is the breakdown of the Return to Play guidelines that you can also find here on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.
Baseline (Step 0): As the baseline step of the Return to Play Progression, the athlete needs to have completed physical and cognitive rest and not be experiencing concussion symptoms for a minimum of 24 hours. Keep in mind, the younger the athlete, the more conservative the treatment.
Step 1: Light Aerobic Exercise (such as walking or biking) for about 5-10 min. No weight lifting or jumping.
*If no symptoms wait 24hrs and move to the next stage.
Step 2: Moderate Exercise (weight lifting, biking, jogging with limited body and head movement.
*If no symptoms wait 24hrs and move to next stage.
Step 3: Non-contact Exercise (non contact drill
*If no symptoms wait 24hrs and move to next stage
Step 4: Practice (integration into contact practice)
*If no symptoms wait 24hrs and move to next stage
Step 5: Play
I also really like this website: http://www.concussionchecklist.org/checklist/ as a resource.
When in doubt, sit it out and take care of yourself!
Jenna
