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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE: To determine if concussion history and career status is associated with neurocognitive performance in elite football players.
METHODS: The study design was a cross-sectional single assessment. Fifty-seven elite football players (age 29.39 ± 7.49 years) categorized as draft prospects, active professional players, and retired professional players were assessed on the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool - third edition (SCAT-3), in an outpatient therapy setting.
RESULTS: Common symptoms were the following: fatigue (45.6%), trouble falling asleep (35.1%), difficulty remembering (33.3%) and irritability (22.8%); 36.8% reported no symptoms. The low concussion (0-1) group reported fewer symptoms (U = 608.50, p <.001), less symptom severity (U = 598.00, p = -.001), and produced greater scores on the Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC) total scores compared to the multiple concussion (2+) group (U = 253.00, p =.024), but no differences were observed on modified Balance Error Scoring System (m-BESS) scores (U = 501.50, p =.066) on the Mann-Whitney U test. The Kruskal-Wallis test and post-hoc analysis indicated retired players were significantly different from draft prospects and current professional players for total symptom scores (p <.001), total symptom severity (p <.001), SAC total scores (p =.030), and m-BESS (p <.001).
CONCLUSIONS: Concussion history and career status appear associated with total symptoms, symptom severity, performance on the SAC, and the m-BESS in elite football players. With this in mind, future research is recommended to determine longitudinal impact for elite football players.
Keywords: American football
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Language: en |