Thinking Otherwise: Bringing Young People into Pediatric Concussion Clinical and Research Practice

Abstract

Abstract Background: As rates of pediatric concussion have steadily risen, and concerns regarding its consequences have emerged, pediatric concussion has received increased attention in research and clinical spheres. Accordingly, there has been a commitment to determine how best to prevent and manage this injury that so commonly affects young people. Despite this increased attention, and proliferation of research, pediatric concussion as a concept has rarely, if ever, been taken up and questioned. That is, little attention has been directed toward understanding what concussion ‘is’, or how young people are regarded in relation to it. As a result, pediatric concussion is understood in decidedly narrow terms, constructed as such by a biomedical way of knowing. Aim: We aim to demonstrate how conceptualizing concussion, and young people, ‘otherwise’, enabled the co-production of a more nuanced and complex understanding of the experience of pediatric concussion from the perspective of young people. Approach: Drawing on an illustrative case example from a critical qualitative arts-based study, we demonstrate how bringing young people into research as ‘knowers’ enabled us to generate much-needed knowledge about concussion in young people. Implications: The critical thinking put forward in this paper suggests a different approach to pediatric concussion, which is shared in the form of implications for clinical and research practice.