NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — For years the concussion protocol for children was to stay home, rest and reduce their brain activity. It was called cocoon therapy in a dark room. New study results reveal that there is a better way.

A study involving 1,600 kids with concussions from nine emergency departments in Canada revealed that children who went back to school earlier and rested felt better than the children who just recovered at home.

“The kids that went back to school earlier instead of staying home and taking a rest that a lot of people might suggest actually felt better. Two weeks later felt better, a month later,” said Dr. Arjun Venkatesh, incoming chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Yale School of Medicine.

He said that could signal that getting kids back to normal activities may be a better choice when kids have minor head injuries.

Dr. Venkatesh also discussed how AI could revolutionize medical diagnoses and how to make air-fried foods healthy.

Artificial intelligence is developed to help with medical diagnoses through something called ChatGPT.

“What they did is put a basic medical case in there that a medical student could have figured out and what they found was when they put it in the ChatGPT it got it right about eighty-five percent of the time,” Dr. Venkatesh said.

Dr. Venkatesh pointed out that when people use Google to figure out what they have, the results are only right half the time. AI could revolutionize that.

And are air fryers truly healthy? Doctor Venkatesh said that depends.

“If you’re using your air fryer instead of deep frying foods it is absolutely going to be healthier lower in fat, lower in calories,” Dr. Venkatesh said.

Dr. Venkatesh said air frying doesn’t make some toxic oils we want to avoid in our diet.

But he said if you cook, even healthy foods, in the air fryer at temperatures too high you could increase your exposure to some other toxic oil.

“Be careful if you do use it on anything, vegetables, meats you name it to really avoid overcooking things and making them more dangerous,” Dr. Venkatesh said.