Almost all patients with a mild head injury experience a range of physical, emotional, behavioural, and cognitive symptoms in the days to weeks after the injury.

These are all common symptoms:

Physical symptoms

Emotional and behavioural symptoms

Cognitive symptoms

Alarm symptoms

If you experience any of the following symptoms in the days after the injury, you should visit the Emergency Department as soon as possible:

• Loss of consciousness
• New deafness in one or both ears
• Loss of balance or problems walking
• Any weakness in one or both arms or legs
• Any vomiting
• Clear fluid coming out of your ears or nose
• Drowsiness when you would normally be wide awake
• Increasing disorientation
• Problems understanding or speaking
• Blurred or double vision
• Inability to be woken
• Bleeding from one or both ears
• Any fits (collapsing or passing out)
• Severe headache, not relieved by painkillers such as paracetamol