OBJECTIVE: International guidelines support a repertoire of therapeutic interventions that may assist recovery following concussion. We aimed to systematically review the efficacy of early pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions initiated within two weeks of injury on symptoms and functional recovery of adults with concussion. METHODS: We conducted a systematic review (SR) of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) without meta-analysis utilising the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. A comprehensive search was performed of four databases. Study inclusion criteria were adult participants diagnosed with concussion and commencing active intervention within 14 days of injury. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Of 7,531 studies identified, 11 were included in the final review. Six studies were rated as high-risk of bias, three with some concerns and two as low-risk of bias. We found no evidence to support specific pharmacotherapeutic management to hasten the natural recovery time-course. Two studies reported significant improvement in selected concussion symptoms following manual therapy (at 48 to 72 hours post-treatment) or telephone counselling interventions (at 6 months post-injury). No high quality RCTs demonstrate superior effects of early therapeutic interventions on concussion recovery in the first 2 weeks. We advocate future research to examine impacts of health-clinician contact points aligned with symptom-specific interventions.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• DOI
• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher