The overall prognosis for patients with concussions is good. With minimal intervention and a proper diagnosis, a large majority of patients who sustained a single concussion/mTBI will recover within hours or days with no lasting ill effects. Generally 85-90% of individuals with concussion/mTBI recover within a 30-day window from the time of injury. A minority of patients experience longer-lasting signs and symptoms of concussion/mTBI. Failure to diagnose and treat concussion/mTBI may explain why signs and symptoms persist in some cases. But a complex mix of physical, genetic, and psychosocial factors may account for other cases of slower recovery.
Concussion/mTBI is a complex injury to a complex system, and that’s why patients with similar injuries may have different symptoms and different courses of recovery.