See the trajectory, not just the snapshot
Follow-up reviews what has changed since the initial assessment. Monitoring determines whether the current direction appears stable, improving, worsening, relapsing, changing form, or still too early to interpret.
Follow-up visits
A Follow-Up & Monitoring visit can be used to:
- Review new laboratory, biopsy, specialist, or practitioner information.
- Clarify the assessment after the patient has reviewed the written summary.
- Reassess priorities after a treatment start, change, interruption, adverse effect, or new symptom.
- Compare updated photographs, scalp findings, symptoms, shedding, density, or trichoscopy with the baseline.
- Prepare for or review a practitioner consultation, referral, or procedure decision.
- Set a longer-term or annual review interval after stabilization.
The Hair Scoreboard
The Hair Scoreboard organizes the features that matter in the individual case and follows them over time.
- Pattern and distribution
- Shedding activity
- Visible density
- Hair caliber
- Follicular-unit output
- Scalp symptoms
- Inflammation or scale
- Treatment response
- Relapse pattern
- Recovery trajectory
- Confidence in case interpretation
- Monitoring priorities
Questions monitoring helps answer
- Whether apparent change is consistent across regions, photographs, symptoms, and measured endpoints.
- Whether improvement reflects recovery rather than styling, lighting, hair length, or measurement variation.
- Whether the current plan deserves more time or whether the working interpretation and next decision should be revisited.
- Whether new findings should be communicated to the treating or referring practitioner.
Monitoring intervals
The interval depends on the biology and expected pace of the condition, the treatment timeline, rate of change, and the question being followed. Some cases need short-interval reassessment. Stable cases may move to longer-term or annual review.
Practitioner feedback during follow-up
For practitioner-referred patients, follow-up findings can be returned to the referrer with consent. The update focuses on documented change, treatment-response trajectory, new concerns, and revised monitoring priorities.