For carers of children under 16 who have sustained a head injury
Discharge advice
We think that it is alright for your child to leave hospital now. We have checked their symptoms and they seem well on the road to recovery. When you get them home it is very unlikely that they will have any further problems. But, if any of the following symptoms do return, we suggest you bring them back to their nearest hospital emergency department as soon as possible:
Unconsciousness, or lack of full consciousness (for example, problems keeping eyes open)
- Drowsiness (feeling sleepy) that goes on for longer than one hour when they would normally be wide awake
- Difficulty waking the patient up
- Problems understanding or speaking
- Loss of balance or problems walking
- Weakness in one or more arms or legs
- Problems with their eyesight
- Painful headache that won’t go away
- Vomiting (being sick)
- Seizures (also known as convulsions or fits)
- Clear fluid coming out of their ear or nose
- Bleeding from one or both ears
Things you shouldn’t worry about
They may feel some other symptoms over the next few days which should disappear in the next two weeks. These include a mild headache, feeling sick (without vomiting), dizziness, irritability or bad temper, problems concentrating or problems with their memory, tiredness, lack of appetite or problems sleeping. If you feel very concerned about any of these symptoms in the first few days after discharge, you should bring the patient to their doctor. If these problems do not go away after two weeks, you should bring the patient to see their doctor.
Things that will help the patient get better
If the patient follows this advice it should help them get better more quickly and it may help any symptoms they have to go away:
- DO have plenty of rest and avoid stressful situations.
- DO NOT take sleeping pills, sedatives or tranquilisers unless they are given by a doctor.
- DO NOT play any contact sport (for example, football) for at least 3 weeks without talking to your doctor first.
- Things you should do to make sure the patient is OK.
- DO NOT allow them to return to school until you feel they have completely recovered.
- DO NOT leave the patient alone in the home for the first 24 hours after leaving hospital.
- DO make sure that there is a nearby telephone and that the patient stays within easy reach of medical help.
Long-term problems
Most patients recover quickly from their accident and experience no long-term problems. However, some patients only develop problems after a few weeks or months. If you start to feel that things are not quite right for your child (for example, memory problems, not feeling themselves), then please contact their doctor as soon as possible so that we can check to make sure they are recovering properly.
You can find further support and information from the Child Brain Injury Trust: http://childbraininjurytrust.org.uk/
This information is taken from National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, 2014. ‘Head injury’, NICE clinical guideline 176. London (available at: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg176). NICE guidance is prepared for the National Health Service in England, and is subject to regular review and may be updated or withdrawn. NICE has not checked the use of its content in this publication to confirm that it accurately reflects the NICE publication from which it is taken.