Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise

The June issue of MSSE features two articles relevant to investigators studying sports-related concussion. Currently, concussion assessments may lack sufficient reliability and sensitivity to quantify functional impairment and detect recovery. Howell et al. investigated two executive function tests to see if differences could be detected in responses of 20 concussed high school athletes compared to 20 nonconcussed high school athletes. Both executive function tests detected significant impairments within 72 hours of experiencing concussion, and again one, two, four and eight weeks after concussion compared to nonconcussed athletes studied at matching intervals. The authors conclude that their findings justify further development of these executive function tests as clinical assessment tools.

Also in this month’s issue, we feature a study by Okumura et al. evaluating reliability and sensitivity of a new approach for assessing concussion effects. The authors report that, in contrast to previous concussion assessments that separately test function of physical and cognitive domains, with their approach executive function is assessed simultaneously with physical function during a modified Harvard Step Test. Although Okumura et al.’s participants were healthy, nonconcussed young adults, the authors report that reliability and sensitivity of their dual-task method of assessing executive function were sufficiently robust to warrant further development for assessing concussion. Together, these articles point to new approaches for improving clinical assessment of injury and confirm recovery from concussion.