- 1.) "In the new study, "Contrary to expectations, strict rest for five days immediately after concussion did not help teenagers get better compared to our current advice of one to two days of rest followed by a gradual return to activity," researcher Dr. Danny G. Thomas told Reuters Health. "We found that teenagers instructed to rest for five days actually reported more symptoms over the course of the study," said Thomas, of the department of pediatrics, emergency medicine at the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. For the new study, they randomly assigned 88 patients, ages 11 to 22, who came to the emergency department with a concussion to follow either five days of strict rest (no work, no school, no physical activity) or one to two days of rest followed by stepwise return to activity. Compared to resting for just one to two days, resting for five days did not lead to faster improvements in symptoms, balance, or the ability to think clearly, the researchers report. To the contrary, adolescents assigned to strict rest for five days needed more time for their symptoms to get better, and they had worse symptoms during the first 10 days after their emergency department visit, compared to the group that rested for one to two days." Forty-five teenagers were randomly assigned to one to two days of rest while 43 teenagers were randomly assigned to 5 days of rest. a. Was this an experiment or an observational study? Use the definition of an experiment in your answer. b. State the three basic principles of statistical design of experiments that would need to be explored to determine whether or not this was a well-designed experiment. Include information from the article as to whether or not each of the three elements was met and therefore a well-designed experiment was conducted. If further information is needed from researchers, so state. C. Would you state that 5 days of strict rest after a concussion causes a teenager to have worse concussion symptoms in the first 10 days or that 5 days of strict rest after a concussion is associated with a teenager having worse concussion symptoms in the first 10 days? Why? If there are basic principles of experimental design that must be confirmed from researchers, so state.