Key takeaways
- Track a small set of physical, cognitive, sleep, and emotional symptoms on a consistent scale.
- Record activity with symptoms: note the level before, during, and after exertion and time needed to settle.
- Recovery is individual; a clinician should guide return to driving, work, school, and sport.
- Worsening headache, repeated vomiting, seizure, weakness, slurred speech, or inability to wake needs emergency care.
To track concussion symptoms usefully, record a small, consistent set across four domains: physical symptoms, thinking and memory, sleep, and mood. Add what the person was doing, how symptoms changed before, during, and after the activity, and how long they took to return toward baseline. The goal is not to prove recovery with one score. It is to show a clinician which activities are tolerated, which repeatedly trigger a meaningful increase, and whether the overall pattern is improving, stable, or worsening.
Track symptoms across four domains
Concussion can affect how a person feels, thinks, acts, and sleeps. Symptoms may appear immediately or later, and the mix can change during recovery. Choose the symptoms that are actually present rather than rating a long checklist several times a day. Five to eight items are usually enough to capture the pattern without making tracking the center of every waking hour.
| Domain | Examples | Useful context |
|---|---|---|
| Physical | Headache, dizziness, nausea, light or noise sensitivity, vision problems, fatigue, or balance difficulty. | Location and quality of headache, lighting, movement, meals, hydration, and whether symptoms followed exertion. |
| Thinking and memory | Feeling slowed or foggy, concentration difficulty, memory lapses, trouble reading, or slower responses. | Task duration, screen use, complexity, distractions, and whether a break restored function. |
| Sleep | Trouble falling asleep, waking frequently, sleeping more or less than usual, or daytime sleepiness. | Bedtime, wake time, naps, caffeine, and how rested the person felt the next morning. |
| Social or emotional | Irritability, anxiety, sadness, emotional sensitivity, or feeling overwhelmed. | Social load, noise, pain, poor sleep, and whether the change is new or worsening. |
Use plain language and one scale consistently, such as zero for absent through ten for the worst that symptom has felt during this recovery. The number is personal; one person's six is not comparable with another's. It becomes useful when today's rating can be compared with that same person's previous ratings under similar conditions.
Connect symptoms to physical and cognitive activity
A symptom number without activity context is hard to interpret. A headache rated four after waking is different from a headache that moves from one to four after fifteen minutes of reading and settles after a short break. Record the activity, duration, symptom level before it began, highest level during or soon after, and approximate time needed to return toward the earlier level.
Useful activity categories include walking, household tasks, reading, computer or phone work, conversation, driving if a clinician has allowed it, schoolwork, and the exercises included in a care plan. Do not deliberately push until symptoms become severe just to find a limit. Follow the written plan from the treating clinician. Current CDC guidance supports easing back into regular activities after a short initial rest period and cutting back when symptoms worsen, but the appropriate progression is individual.
A reusable daily concussion tracking template
- Morning baseline: record sleep quality and rate the three to five symptoms that matter most that day.
- Planned activity: write the activity and intended duration, such as a ten-minute walk or fifteen minutes of email.
- Before, during, and after: note symptom levels and any new symptom rather than rating the entire checklist again.
- Recovery time: record how long it took to return near the morning or pre-activity level.
- Support used: note breaks, reduced brightness, quiet space, hydration, or another accommodation in the care plan.
- Evening summary: write one sentence describing what was better tolerated, what was harder, and whether the day felt better, similar, or worse overall.
A simple example might read: 'Morning headache 2/10, dizziness 1/10, slept seven hours. Read on a laptop for fifteen minutes; headache reached 4/10 and returned to 2/10 after twenty minutes in a dim room. Ten-minute walk did not increase symptoms. Overall slightly better than yesterday.' That gives a clinician more usable information than a page of disconnected scores.
What signs of progress look like
Recovery does not always look like every symptom dropping each day. A more useful pattern may be tolerating a longer conversation at the same symptom level, needing less recovery time after a walk, completing more school or work with the same accommodations, or having fewer large fluctuations across the day. Weekly trends are usually easier to interpret than comparing one Tuesday with one Wednesday.
Tell the healthcare provider if symptoms are getting worse rather than gradually improving, return strongly with ordinary activity, or are not resolving on the timeline the provider discussed. CDC guidance advises contacting a healthcare provider when symptoms do not go away within two to three weeks or worsen after returning to regular activities. Individual factors such as age, previous concussion, migraine, anxiety, depression, and other health conditions can affect recovery.
How to track without becoming consumed by symptoms
Repeatedly checking every sensation can increase anxiety and make ordinary variation feel threatening. Set fixed check-in times, track only the symptoms relevant to the current care plan, and let the rest of the day be about recovery and normal life. For many people, a morning baseline, activity notes, and an evening summary are enough. A caregiver can help with organization, but the person recovering should describe their own symptoms whenever possible.
Stop or simplify the log if it is increasing distress, disrupting sleep, or encouraging repeated self-testing. Bring that concern to the clinician. The purpose of the record is to support decisions and communication, not to create a perfect dataset or to compete with yesterday's numbers.
Concussion danger signs that need emergency care
In rare cases, a dangerous blood clot can crowd the brain after a head injury. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department for a headache that worsens and does not go away; repeated vomiting; seizure or convulsions; weakness, numbness, or decreased coordination; slurred speech or unusual behavior; one pupil larger than the other; increasing confusion, restlessness, or agitation; loss of consciousness; or marked drowsiness or inability to wake the person. For an infant or young child, inability to console or refusal to nurse or eat are additional danger signs identified by the CDC.
Return-to-play decisions require a healthcare professional and a graded progression. An athlete should not return to sport on the same day as a suspected concussion. Driving also deserves specific guidance when attention, processing speed, vision, or reaction time is affected. A good symptom day is encouraging, but it is not clearance for an activity with a risk of another head injury.
What to bring to the follow-up visit
Summarize the record on one page: injury and evaluation dates, the current three to five main symptoms, activity tolerance, recovery time after exertion, sleep pattern, accommodations, medicines taken, and the overall weekly direction. Include a few representative examples rather than every rating. Ask the clinician which activities to advance, which to hold, what warning signs apply to the person's situation, and when another follow-up is needed.
How Alumina Health fits into a recovery record
Alumina Health includes an eye-brain vision check and guided reaction and processing speed and walking and movement tasks on iPhone and iPad. When a treating clinician considers these activities appropriate, repeating them under similar conditions can add structured context to the symptom log. Alumina is not a medical device, does not diagnose concussion, and cannot determine recovery or return-to-activity readiness. Stop a task if it conflicts with the care plan or produces concerning symptoms, and share the trend only as supporting information for a qualified clinician.