The Australian Institute of Sport and the Australian Medical Association launched a joint initiative on Saturday recommending greater precautions around potential concussion – particularly when it comes to young heads.

"It is the commonsense approach absolutely," said St Vincent's Hospital doctor Elizabeth Meagher, who was watching from the sidelines on Saturday as her son, Joe, played rugby for Riverview Under 13s at Lane Cove.

Mrs Meagher said "several" of her eight sons had previously been knocked unconscious on the rugby field, the latest only a fortnight ago. "If you're knocked unconscious and it's going to bleed there, you don't want to be hit again. Two weeks out should always be the minimum."

The collaborative protocol was released in tandem with a new federal government-funded website, which addresses growing worldwide health concerns about the condition. It features clinical information and advice for athletes, parents, teachers and coaches in helping to identify key symptoms that are not always obvious following sport-related knocks.

The move comes one week after the tragic death of Lui Polimeni, who died after suffering an on-field concussion in an under-16s rugby league game at Gundagai in southern NSW. The 15-year-old was flown to Canberra Hospital in a critical condition suffering severe stroke symptoms. His family made the heart-breaking decision to switch off his life support on Tuesday.

The recommendations come as the international sporting movement wrestles with the reality of CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease that is rife among codes where blows to the head are the norm.

There has been a 60 per cent rise in the number of people admitted to hospital for sport-related concussion in the past decade, but AIS chief medical officer Dr David Hughes said general knowledge about concussion and its management at a community sporting level remained poor.

"In Australia we don't really have accurate collection of figures for incidents of concussion," said Dr Hughes, who added children were particularly vulnerable to concussion because their brains were still developing. "Our review of the literature, and that's ongoing, is that children are more prone to concussion and take longer to recover than adults."

He stressed the 14-day sit-out period did not necessarily mean two weeks on from the incident, but "14 days of being symptom-free". "We all need to be vigilant when it comes to recognising the warning signs. Any athlete with suspected concussion must be reviewed by a medical practitioner. A simple piece of advice that applies to everyone is: 'if in doubt, sit it out'."

John Martin was one of thousands of parents yesterday relieved to see his son return from the playing field unscathed. Baxter, who plays rugby for King's School under-13s, told The Sun-Herald he "never" worries about suffering concussion – although the same cannot be said for his dad. "Yes, I do worry when he's out there playing. It's contact sport after all," said Mr Martin, who added: "He broke his wrist last year. Nobody wants to see their kids get hurt."

Of the new guidelines, he said: "I am not a doctor so if the medical world is advising that two weeks is a sufficient amount of time, I think everybody should take it on board."