Dark room, no screens, rest until every symptom is gone. That was the advice most of us were given, and the current international consensus says it is not beneficial.

Most concussions do not need an emergency department. A small number of head injuries do, and the signs are specific enough to be worth knowing before you need them. The red flags, why getting worse over hours matters, and when neck pain is a spine question.

What to do on the sideline, that night, and the next morning — and the one instruction that has changed since most of us learned it.

You got hit, felt off for a while, and never told anyone. The physical therapy guideline says time since injury should not decide whether that is worth looking at.