Recovering from a mild brain injury

In a small number of cases, serious complications can develop in the first 24 hours after injury, so make sure you’re in the care of an adult during this time.

You can download our mild brain injury discharge advice which is also available in other languages.

In the first 24 hours after injury

Can I go to sleep? Yes. Just make sure you’re in the care of another adult.

Immediately see your doctor, go to the hospital’s emergency department or call 000 if you or your carer notices any of these symptoms:

• feeling faint or drowsy
• can’t be woken up
• acting strange, saying things that don’t make sense
• have a constant severe headache or a headache that gets worse
• cannot remember new events, or recognise people or places
• pass out, have a blackout or a seizure
• cannot move parts of your body
• clumsiness
• have blurred vision or slurred speech
• have fluid or bleeding from the ear or nose
• have loss of hearing
• vomiting more than twice

In the first 4 weeks after injury

Take an active role in your recovery

Like any injury you may have some symptoms and it can take some time for you to recover.

Here are some ways to help you manage these common symptoms:

Further information

Concussion in sport

Concussion in Sport is a government funded website that provides simple but specific advisory tools for children, athletes, teachers, coaches and medical practitioners.

It also includes a joint position statement with the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and the Australian Medical Association (AMA) on concussion in sport.

Other languages

Our mild brain injury discharge advice is available to download in these languages (translations):

• Arabic
• Chinese
• Croatian
• Greek
• Hindi
• Italian
• Korean
• Macedonian
• Nepali
• Serbian
• Spanish
• Turkish
• Vietnamese