An amazing achievement from the Australian Institute of Sport has seen recent changes to the Australian Concussion guidelines for youth and community sports. The changes to these guidelines have been established with advice from the United Kingdom’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport and New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Corporation.

The key updates to these changes are:

• Expanding the existing advice that children under the age of 19 and under who suffer from a concussion must be 14 days symptom-free before returning to contact sport; and
• Extending the mandatory stand-down period to 21 days from the incident of concussion before being able to return to competitive contact sport.

As children are more susceptible to concussions than adults, it is imperative to prevent injuries leading to a concussion from occurring.

If a child is involved in an accident during competitive or community sports and there may be signs of a concussion, remove them from play. Concussion symptoms may not always be present directly after the accident, so ‘if in doubt, sit them out’. Concussion signs and symptoms often go unnoticed as many children can’t identify themselves.

Kidsafe WA has created a fantastic fact sheet on Concussions that provides information on what concussions are, the main signs and symptoms, and what recovery periods might look like. Check out our Concussions Fact sheet and a helpful animation about concussions for the Australian Institute of Sport below.

Want further information about sports-related injuries? Find more of our sport-related fact sheets here.