Tracking recovery after a head injury — a simple weekly method

Recovery is hard to judge from memory. A short weekly record of a few symptoms and one or two timed tasks makes progress visible — and makes appointments far more useful.

Key takeaways

Memory for how last week felt is unreliable — a written record beats recall.
Track weekly, not hourly; daily numbers swing too much to read anything into.
Record a handful of symptoms plus activity tolerance, sleep and one short timed task.
Compare yourself with your own earlier weeks, never with someone else's average.
Bring the record to appointments; it is the most useful thing you can hand a clinician.

Why tracking is worth the two minutes

After a concussion, two errors are almost universal. The first is deciding nothing is improving, because today was bad and last week is a blur. The second is deciding everything is fine on the first good day, doing a full week's worth of activity, and losing three days to it.

A short weekly record fixes both. It shows the slow upward line under the noise, and it shows the pattern of what you did versus how you felt afterwards.

What to record each week

**Headache** — how many days this week, and how bad at worst.
**Light and noise** — whether normal environments still feel like too much.
**Thinking** — reading the same line twice, losing the thread, word-finding.
**Sleep** — hours, wake-ups, and whether you wake refreshed.
**Activity tolerance** — the honest limit before symptoms build: minutes of screen work, or how far you can walk.
**Mood** — irritability, low mood and anxiety are part of recovery, not a character failure.
**One timed task** — the same short test, same device, same time of day.

The concussion recovery check walks through this in a couple of minutes and gives you a single weekly number, plus a red-flag reminder in case something needs urgent attention.

Using short timed tasks properly

A reaction time test or a visual memory test can be a genuinely useful part of a weekly record, provided you treat it as one line on a chart rather than a verdict. Two rules make it worth doing: always compare with your own earlier attempts, and keep the conditions the same.

Same device, same input, same seat.
Same rough time of day, and not straight after a hard task.
Once a week. Repeating it daily produces noise and, often, anxiety.
Note the obvious confounders — bad night, alcohol, new medication, illness. See what affects reaction time.

Red flags override any tracker

A worsening headache, repeated vomiting, weakness, numbness, slurred speech, seizures, unequal pupils, fluid from the nose or ears, or increasing drowsiness or confusion means emergency care now — not another week of recording.

How to read your own record

Look for direction over three or four weeks, not day-to-day change. Slow improvement with occasional bad days is the normal shape of recovery. A flat line for a month, or a downward one, is a reason to ask for a review rather than to keep waiting.

Also read the pairs: the week you went back to full-time screens and felt worse tells you where your current ceiling is. That is how activity tolerance gets rebuilt — by nudging the ceiling, not by ignoring it.

Making appointments count

Clinical time is short and "I still don't feel right" is hard to act on. A single page showing four weeks of headache days, sleep, activity tolerance and one timed score turns a vague complaint into something specific. Print it, or take a photo of the summary. There is a printable change log if you prefer paper.

How Memo complements this

Memo keeps the weekly check-ins and short tasks in one place and shows the trend since you started, so the comparison is always with your own earlier weeks. Memo is a wellness companion, not a diagnostic tool, and it does not decide when you can return to sport, work or driving.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

How often should I test myself after a concussion?

Once a week is enough for most people. Daily testing produces swings driven by sleep, stress and time of day rather than by recovery, and for many people it increases anxiety without adding information. Keep the device and the time of day the same each week.

What should I write down after a head injury?

Headache days and severity, light and noise sensitivity, thinking difficulty, sleep quality, mood, and the honest limit of activity you can manage before symptoms build. Adding one short timed task under identical conditions gives you an objective line alongside the symptoms.

Can tracking tell me when I have recovered?

It can show that your symptoms have settled and your activity tolerance is back to normal, which is strong reassurance. It cannot clear you medically, and it cannot decide when returning to sport, driving or full work is safe — those are clinical judgements.

Is a free online test accurate enough to be useful?

For tracking your own change over weeks, yes, provided the conditions stay the same. Browsers, screens and touchscreens add delay, so the absolute numbers are not clinical measurements. Compare with your own earlier results rather than with published norms.