When a child suffers a concussion during sports or play, many parents wouldn’t know what to do. Should their child go to hospital or just to their doctor? How long should they stay out of sports afterwards? Do they need to stay home from school?

Now, researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton Ont. have put together a first-of-its-kind online guide for parents to help them navigate the challenges of childhood concussion.

Laura Turner has already made use of the guidelines and was glad they were there when she need them. Just before Christmas, her 10-year-old son, Owen, was playing league hockey in their hometown of New Hamburg, Ont. when he collided hard with another player.

Owen fell to the ice and hit his head. Turner watched her son leave the ice, but noticed he was crying. By the time he left the dressing room a little while later, she knew something was wrong.

“He was crying when he left the dressing room again,” she told CTV’s Canada AM Wednesday from Kitchener.

“He didn’t lose consciousness or have amnesia, but he was dizzy, he felt nauseous, he was extremely fatigued. He explained that he had trouble thinking and he really wasn’t himself.”

Turner, who’s an occupational therapist and is part of the research team at CanChild Centre for Childhood Disability Research at McMaster, suspected her son had had a concussion. She knew that other researchers at CanChild had recently released concussion guidelines. So as soon as they got home from the arena, she looked them up.

“I jumped online went away, referenced the guidelines to try to figure out his symptoms. I went through the checklist, I looked for the red-flag symptoms as well,” she says.

Those red flags include:

  • increased drowsiness
  • worsening headaches or neck pain
  • persistent vomiting
  • pupils unequal in size
  • seizures
  • short-term memory loss
  • slurred speech
  • blurred vision

Feeling confident that Owen didn’t exhibit any of the red-flag symptoms, Turner decided not to take her son to the emergency room. But in the morning, she took him to their family doctor to discuss his symptoms and he agreed that Owen had had a concussion.

Turner decided to follow the guidelines to the letter, using them as guidance about when to return to regular activities.The guidelines lay out five stages that kids need to go through, moving to the next stage only when they are symptom-free. They are:

Stage 1: Brain rest. No cognitive stimulation

Stage 2: Getting ready to go back, gentle activity

Stage 3: Back to school and modified activity

Stage 4: Nearly normal routines. Full days of school, 1 test/week

Stage 5: Fully back to school

So for the first week, Owen stayed home and did only quiet activities.

“He had a full week of cognitive rest -- which was very challenging. No screens, no reading, no school, no screens, no sports,” Turner says.

The following week, he went to school half days and Turner drove him so he didn’t have to take the bus. Then he rested some more over the holidays.

Turner admits that Owen was irritated that he had to be on rest and missed his friends and usual activities. He was also a little worried for his own health. But Turner says once she showed her son the guidelines and explained why they were following them, he understood a little better.

“I said, ‘Look, Owen. Mum isn’t making these up. These are in place for a reason’,” she says. “And once I was able to tell him that, he was on board and it was a much easier process for us.”

Owen is now doing fine and his mother believes it’s because the guidelines gave them a step-by-step plan for getting better.

“We were able to take a conservative approach and refer our family members, his coaches and teachers to the guidelines so that we were able to be sure that the plan we were following would ensure the best outcome for Owen,” she says.