Hospital stay after a concussion

I think they'd send her home with instructions to come back in if she showed any symptoms of concussion or brain injury.

When I hit my head, I was fully unconscious and the hospital sent me home after exam and X-ray. This was UK.

If it's any help, when I hit my head aged 18 (riding accident, one of the only two concussions I ever had) they just checked me over (they may have x-rayed me) and sent me home. I didn't need stitches though.

I seem to remember them asking me to count up to 40 in even numbers and down in odd numbers.

According to my mother, I was talking gibberish after going to bed that night though - I believe they had warned her I might. Though as I said later, how could she tell the difference...

I was also sent home after a battery of tests. I didn't lose consciousness and I showed no signs of bleeding, etc. (From what I recall, you're generally released unless you show signs of a blood clot/bleeding/swelling as outlined in the links below--headache that gets worse, prolonged nausea/vomiting, slurred speech/coordination problems, unequal pupil size, seizures, etc.)

These links may prove helpful:
http://www.aans.org/Patient Information/Conditions and Treatments/Concussion.aspx

http://cogstate.com/go/sport/concussion-management/sideline-assessment

http://www.cdc.gov/concussion/

What to Expect When You See a Health Care Professional
While most are seen in an emergency department or medical office, some people must stay in the hospital overnight. Your health care professional may do a scan of your brain (such as a CT scan) or other tests. Other tests, known as “neuropsychological” or “neurocognitive” tests, assess your learning and memory skills, your ability to pay attention or concentrate, and how quickly you can think and solve problems. These tests can help your health care professional identify the effects of a concussion. Even if the concussion doesn’t show up on these tests, you may still have a concussion.

Your health care professional will send you home with important instructions to follow. Be sure to follow all of your health care professional’s instructions carefully.

If you are taking medications—prescription, over-thecounter medicines, or “natural remedies”—or if you drink alcohol or take illicit drugs, tell your health care professional. Also, tell your health care professional if you are taking blood thinners (anticoagulant drugs), such as Coumadin and aspirin, because they can increase the chance of complications.

See Getting Better, for tips to help aid your recovery after a concussion.

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http://www.injuryinformation.com/injuries/concussions.php

http://www.sportsconcussion.com/pdf...ussions Management Guidelines for Schools.pdf

trocadero said:

My MC is 18 and was hit over the head with a broken bottle late at night. She was groggy, but not quite unconscious. Her friends took her to the hospital where a scan showed no serious brain injury. They stitched her up. She has a bad headache. Sound realistic?

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Firstly, they are unliklely to do a scan unless they suspect damage to the brain itself. Scans are time consuming, costly and require a neurologist to examine them - if it's late at night chances are there may not be anyone on who can do it.

More likely is that they will clean and stitch any wounds, check her responses and send her for an xray as these can be assessed by any radiographer and there will be some of those on for sure.

To note - there are other signs of serious problems, such as bleeding from the ear, which may indicate a skull fracture.

After that, it's home - so long as someone is there to take you.

In my experience the worst thing is the nausea - I threw up repeatedly (in Ireland we call that extreme nausea 'boking your ring up' but that's OT) and the confusion. The only way I can describe it is like being half asleep when nothing seems real - this is the stage where people tend to talk complete rubbish.

For the first few days I wasn't in pain, or at least I don't think I was. But I remember the pain later - it can take anything from a couple of days to weeks to recover from a concussion.

I was completely useless for a couple of weeks though - I was confused all the time, and kept forgetting stuff. I wasn't allowed to drive either.

Will they keep her in overnight? Or will they send her home with her parents, since a scan showed nothing major?

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It depends on how she seems and the severity of the injury.

trocadero said:

Thanks so much everyone. I'll look up those links. Oddly, they're supposedly common, but neither I or my kids have ever had a concussion.

Thanks!

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I've had a couple - mostly the result of horse riding accidents, and once when I bent down to pick up a bucket and somehow managed to smash my head against the wall. Not good.

When I had one, they sent me home after checking me out and asking a lot of questions to judge my mental status. They didn't do any scans, although my primary doctor did have me do a ct scan when I went to her later.

As the National Football League and National Hockey League have discovered in the past few years, there exists a wide spectrum of concussion symptoms, and it's best to err on the side of caution with them. An overnight stay is probable, just to make sure there's nothing worse going on (like a cerebral hemorrhage). Liam Neeson's wife died a couple of years ago after a ski crash, when initial medical inspection found nothing serious wrong.

And it's not really a matter of "mental state". It's a matter of reactions to stimuli, as judged by well-informed medical people.

So, in reality, you have a lot of leeway here for what might happen to a character having received a head injury not obviously traumatic.

caw

At UMC in Tucson the standard procedure is an overnight stay for any head injury, because swelling doesn't always happen right away. They also like to have a patient sitter with patients who have had a head trauma.

Granted, once you're admitted to most ERs you're probably going to be there for the equivalent of overnight anyway.