The Course of Concussion Recovery in Children 6-12 Years of Age: Experience From an Interdisciplinary Rehabilitation Clinic.

This was a retrospective chart review, so information depended on what different providers wrote down, and detail varied. The clinic was a specialty referral setting, so it included children who had not recovered quickly in the first days, and it may miss children who recover fast without specialty care. Time to discharge was partly tied to when the child first reached the clinic; many children were discharged at the first visit, so some may have been ready earlier if they had been seen sooner. Discharge was based on clinical judgment and symptom resolution, not an objective test of brain recovery. Ten children were not formally discharged because they did not return or were referred elsewhere, and their records were included only up to their last clinic visit. There was no comparison group or treatment assignment, so the study cannot say whether the interdisciplinary clinic or any specific care component shortened recovery. Only 18 children were younger than 9, so age and gender analyses were limited. The association between family history of headache and persisting symptoms had a wide reported range, so its strength is uncertain.

The authors reported no financial relationships relevant to the article and no conflicts of interest.

Do not read the 34-day median as how long all children aged 6-12 need to recover from concussion. It came from children referred to a specialty rehabilitation clinic within 60 days, and many children recover quickly without specialty care.