Concussion Management and Return to Play

Concussion is a medical matter before it is a training matter. This page describes how the Kinetic Haus clinic handles concussion management, from the first assessment through a graded return to play, so you know what an appointment involves. It is not advice about your own head injury and it does not replace an assessment by a qualified practitioner.

If a concussion is suspected today

Stop the activity. An athlete who may have sustained a concussion should come out of play and should not go back in the same day. Then get assessed by a qualified practitioner. If symptoms are severe or getting worse, that is an emergency department rather than a clinic appointment, and it should not wait for anybody's opening hours.

Everything below describes the process after that point, once someone has been seen and concussion care is under way.

What our concussion service is

Concussion management is one of the eight services listed on the clinic page. It is evidence-informed care from an initial assessment through a graded return to play. Across that period the team monitors symptoms, vestibular and ocular function, and exertion tolerance. In plainer terms: how you feel, how your balance and eye movement systems are working, and how much physical effort you can do before symptoms change.

The clinic's four steps apply here as they do everywhere else. Assess, plan, train, recover. The assessment and intake come first, then a plan built around your timeline, then guided work with the therapy and coaching teams, then a return to sport and life with something to hold it.

What the first appointment involves

Expect a long conversation before anything else. What happened, what you noticed at the time, what has changed since, your medical and injury history, and what you need to get back to, which for some people is a sport and for others is a shift at work or a school term. From there the practitioner examines the areas the service covers and establishes where you currently sit. That baseline is what every later decision gets measured against.

Graded return to play, and what graded means

A graded return means activity is increased in steps, with each step held long enough to see how you respond before the next one is added. Symptoms guide the pace. If a step provokes symptoms, the step is repeated or reduced rather than pushed through.

We publish no timeline, because a timeline is the thing that gets people into trouble. How long any stage takes is individual. It depends on the person and on the injury, and it is set by the practitioner in front of you, not by a calendar, a coach, a season, or a page like this one. If somebody tells you how many days your recovery will take before they have assessed you, treat that as a warning sign.

Clearance to return to contact or to competition is a clinical decision, made by a qualified practitioner. It is not something a training floor decides.

Training while this is going on

The practical advantage of a clinic and a training floor sharing a building is that the two sides can be coordinated instead of contradicting each other. Your therapist sets what is allowed at each stage. The coaching team works inside that, which usually means the rest of you keeps training in whatever way is permitted while the graded steps run their course. Our coaches carry injury rehab and pain management as part of the Performance Centre, described on the performance page.

If you are a parent managing this for a young athlete, the same applies. Nobody here will push a teenager back into contact ahead of a clinical clearance, and nobody here treats a game as a reason to skip a step.

Who you would see, and how to book

Mary Lalancette, our Clinic Director, is an Osteopathic Manual Practitioner, Certified Athletic Therapist and RMT with close to twenty years of work with varsity, professional and national level athletes, including athletes from the NHL, NBA and NLL. Tina Szeto is an Osteopathic Manual Practitioner and Athletic Therapist. Dr. Jess Pontarollo is our physiotherapist, and her approach is movement-based and evidence-informed. The full team is on the team page.

Clinic appointments are booked on Jane at kinetichaus.janeapp.com. Classes and memberships are booked separately on bsport, the ten formats are on the classes page and the plans are on the pricing page. We are at 107 Orfus Rd, Toronto, M6A 1M4, in the Yorkdale area of North York, open 6am to 9pm on weekdays and 8am to 6pm at weekends. The phone is +1 (416) 782-2002.