Concussion Questions to Ask
For parents, coaches, partners and friends keeping an eye on someone after a head injury. Twenty plain questions covering headache, dizziness, screen tolerance, sleep, memory and concentration, mood, balance, and going back to school, work or sport, so you can describe clearly what you are seeing. This is not a substitute for medical assessment, and the guide sets out the signs that need urgent care.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Better, the same, or worse than yesterday?
Why ask it
Keep the daily question this simple and write the one-word answer down. The trend across several days is what a clinician wants, and it is the thing that gets lost when each day is discussed on its own. Worse two days running is a reason to ring the doctor.
Do you have a headache right now, and where is it?
Why ask it
Location and character carry more information than a number out of ten. Note anything that is steadily getting worse, wakes them from sleep, or feels unlike any headache they have had before, and report it rather than treating it at home.
What made things worse today, and what helped?
Why ask it
Symptoms after a concussion are usually triggered by something specific: a screen, a noisy room, a car journey, bending over, exercise. Naming the trigger gives you something to remove today, and the list of triggers shrinking week by week is a sign of recovery.
Do you feel sick or dizzy when you stand up or turn your head quickly?
Why ask it
Ask them to describe it in their own words, because the room spinning, feeling faint and feeling unsteady are three different things and a clinician will want to know which. Repeated vomiting after a head injury needs same-day medical assessment.
How long can you look at a screen before it bothers you?
Why ask it
Ask for minutes rather than yes or no, so you have a number to compare tomorrow. Tolerance that falls over several days, rather than slowly rising, is worth mentioning at the next appointment along with what they were doing on the bad days.
Is light or noise bothering you more or less than yesterday?
Why ask it
Wearing sunglasses indoors and wanting a quiet room are common in the first days. This symptom often eases before the headache does, so its return usually follows a day when they did more than they could manage.
How did you sleep, and are you sleeping more during the day?
Why ask it
Broken nights and heavy daytime sleepiness are both common early on. The part that matters for safety is whether they wake normally: unusual difficulty rousing someone after a head injury needs urgent medical attention rather than a note in the diary.
Are you finding it hard to follow a conversation or keep track of what you were doing?
Why ask it
Ask for one example from today, such as losing the thread mid-sentence, rereading the same paragraph, or forgetting why they walked into a room. Concrete examples are far more useful to a clinician, and to a school, than a rating.
Does thinking feel like more effort than usual?
Why ask it
People tend to describe this as fog or as running a step behind. It often outlasts the headache and it is the symptom most likely to be missed at school or work, because nothing about it is visible from outside.
How is your balance when you walk, and have you bumped into anything?
Why ask it
Watch as well as ask: a hand on the wall, veering to one side, holding the rail on stairs. Unsteadiness raises the chance of a second knock to the head, and a second injury while still recovering is the outcome most worth preventing.
Any ringing in your ears, or does your hearing seem different?
Why ask it
Easy to forget by the time an appointment comes round, so write it down when it is mentioned. New hearing loss, or clear fluid coming from an ear or the nose, needs urgent medical attention the same day.
Is your vision doing anything odd: blurring, doubling, hard to focus?
Why ask it
Double vision should be reported promptly rather than monitored at home. Difficulty getting the eyes to work together for close work is common after a concussion and there is treatment for it, so it is worth raising even if it seems minor.
Any numbness, tingling or weakness in your arms or legs, or new neck pain?
Why ask it
These point past concussion toward the neck or the nervous system, and they belong in a phone call to a clinician rather than a symptom diary. Ask again if the person was moved or helped up straight after the injury.
Are you more irritable, tearful or on edge than usual?
Why ask it
Mood changes after a head injury are common and they unsettle families who were not warned about them. Ask the person, then ask someone who lives with them, because the change is often clearer from outside than from inside.
How are you eating and drinking?
Why ask it
Appetite often drops for a few days, and being short of fluids makes a headache worse, which is a small problem you can fix at home. Vomiting that carries on is a different matter and should be reported the day it happens.
What did you try doing today, and what did it cost you afterwards?
Why ask it
Long periods of complete rest are no longer the standard advice; gentle activity kept within tolerance is. The measure that matters is whether symptoms settle within an hour or drag on into the evening, and that answer sets the level for tomorrow.
If you are back at school or work, which part of the day is hardest?
Why ask it
The specific answer, such as the afternoon, or a noisy corridor, or anything on a screen, is what lets you ask for the right adjustment: a shorter day, breaks in a quiet room, printed material, tests postponed.
What are you taking for it, and how often?
Why ask it
Worth tracking on paper. Taking painkillers most days can itself keep a headache going, some medicines are usually avoided in the days right after a head injury, and the pharmacist or doctor can only advise on what they know about.
Has anything happened that we should have phoned someone about?
Why ask it
Ask this plainly, because people often decide not to mention things. Another blow to the head, a seizure, repeated vomiting, a suddenly severe or steadily worsening headache, weakness, confusion or trouble waking all mean urgent care rather than waiting for the next appointment.
What has to happen before you go back to sport, and who signs it off?
Why ask it
Returning to contact sport normally follows a staged progression, with each stage held until symptoms stay settled, and the clearance should come from a clinician rather than a coach or the player. Ask for the stages in writing and for who to contact between appointments.
Keeping watch after a head injury
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Signs that need urgent help
- Get emergency help if the person has a seizure, cannot be woken normally, becomes confused about where they are, or stops recognising people.
- Also treat as urgent: repeated vomiting, a headache that keeps getting worse or becomes suddenly severe, weakness or numbness in an arm or leg, slurred speech, double vision, clear fluid or blood from the nose or ears, or new severe neck pain.
- Any further blow to the head while still recovering should be assessed rather than watched at home.
- If you are unsure, ring the number your clinician gave you, or the local urgent care line, and describe what has changed. Nobody minds the call that turns out to be nothing.
Keep a simple daily record
One line a day is enough
Date, better or worse than yesterday, the two symptoms that were worst, how long they managed a screen, how they slept, and what they did. A week of those lines answers most of the questions an appointment will ask.
Write down the triggers, not just the symptoms
The pattern you are looking for is what set things off and how long recovery took afterwards. That is what tells you whether the pace of return to activity is about right or too fast.
Take the record to appointments
Memory and concentration are often affected, so the person cannot reliably summarise their own week. Handing over a page of notes tends to change the consultation more than anything you say.
How to ask without wearing them out
Once a day, not every hour
Repeated checking is tiring for someone with a headache and it makes people minimise their answers to end the conversation. Pick a quiet moment, ask a few questions, and leave the rest.
Ask for examples rather than scores
"What did you have trouble with today?" gets you something usable. A number out of ten drifts with mood and with how much the person wants to be back at work.
Expect symptoms to be played down
Athletes wanting to play, students behind on work and adults with deadlines all under-report. Ask someone else who has seen them, and trust what you observe about balance, patience and word-finding as much as what you are told.
Keep the tone flat and unhurried
Concern expressed as urgency raises anxiety, which makes headache and concentration worse. Ordinary, quiet questions get more honest answers and cost the person less.
Common mistakes
Treating a good day as the finish line
Symptoms after a concussion commonly come and go. One clear day is not recovery, and it is the usual point at which people go back to full training or a full timetable and set themselves back.
Weeks in a dark room
Extended complete rest tends to prolong things. After the first day or two the aim is gentle activity that stays under the level where symptoms flare, increased slowly, guided by whoever is overseeing the recovery.
Assuming a normal scan means nothing is wrong
Standard imaging is used to rule out bleeding and fractures, and a concussion does not usually show up on it. A clear scan is reassuring about one thing and says nothing about the symptoms in front of you.
Letting the coach or the player decide about contact
Pressure to return, from a team, a season or the person themselves, is the reason staged clearance exists. Keep that decision with a clinician, and put the stages in writing so nobody has to argue in the changing room.
Going back to school, work and sport
What to arrange, in order
- 1Ask the clinician what activity is allowed now, what to hold back, and what specifically should prompt a call before the next appointment. Write the answers down at the time.
- 2Tell the school, university or employer in writing, and ask for concrete adjustments: a reduced day, breaks in a quiet space, deadlines moved, screen work limited, no tests for now.
- 3Increase one thing at a time, and only after a couple of settled days. Adding a longer day and a training session in the same week makes it impossible to tell which one caused the setback.
- 4Keep contact sport, cycling, ladders, driving and anything else with a fall risk out until the person overseeing recovery says otherwise, and let them, not the calendar, set the date.
If recovery is dragging on
Ask what the plan is now rather than waiting longer. Persistent symptoms are often treatable with targeted rehabilitation for balance, neck pain, vision or headache, and a referral is a reasonable thing to request.