With the many sports and activities offered at St. George’s, injuries are bound to happen. One of the ways that injuries affect students is by causing them to fall behind on schoolwork during their recovery. Concussions are no exception, as a brain injury tends to cause students to focus more on their recovery to ensure that their brain fully recovers.

Grade 11 student Liam Ross said, “When I first came back (to school), it was hard because I could not keep up with reading, doing tests and quizzes. In the long-term that has carried over, I’ve had to make up for tests, and I have just been catching up the whole time. “

First lets start by identifying what exactly a concussion is. A concussion is a brief loss of awareness or brain functioning after a head injury (such as a blow or fall). Some people can have a concussion and not even realize it. Others suffer a syndrome of symptoms that can last many weeks.

It has been reported that teenagers suffer greater symptoms from a concussion than a child or an adult do.

One of the things that are common between coaches and parents of student-athletes is that they allow the student to play through a concussion, especially in the early stages. The first few days or even the first week of a concussion is when students typically experience the symptoms most frequently.

Grade 11 student Chris Bonner stated, “When I first came back (to school), things like reading, writing, using the computer, watching any sorts of videos, listening to music I couldn’t do that…. For those first three or four days it was a struggle, I couldn’t really do anything. Even walking gave me headaches.”

If something like walking, cannot be performed by a student. How are they being forced back into action as soon as possible? St. George’s however, respects the fact that the health of a student comes before anything else. But this is a common occurrence in other places, with sports seasons being so short and not being able to wait 4-6 weeks for an athlete to fully recover.

“The school was quite supportive, they definitely made a lot of accommodations (dealing with his injury)” said grade 11 student Nick Kosteckyj.

As we can see here, one of the major impacts that a concussion can have on student is having them fall behind on their schoolwork. The two major causes of this are found in either spending a lot of time away due to recovery, or because the affects of a brain injury have harmed a student enough that it is difficult for them to focus. Either way when dealing with a concussion, it is very important to rest and recover as much as needed to ensure a proper recovery.