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Establishment of normative data on cognitive tests for comparison with athletes sustaining mild head injury
S M Oliaro1, K M Guskiewicz, W E Prentice
1Department of Physical Education, Exercise, and Sport Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599.
Objective:
To provide normal data for comparison with objective measures of an athlete's cognitive ability after mild head injury (MHI).
Subjects:
Seventy-two Division I college athletes.
Design And Setting:
Athletes were assessed on three test dates (two days apart) in a sports medicine research laboratory.
Measurements:
Normative data were collected on four cognitive tests (Hopkins Verbal Learning Test, Stroop Test, Reitan Trail-Making Tests, and Wechsler Digit Span Tests).
Results:
A repeated-measures analysis of variance revealed significant learning effects on all tests except the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test. A high correlation was noted between the Stroop and the Trail-Making Tests.
Conclusions:
These normative data can be used as comparisions to provide an objective measure of an athlete's cognitive ability following MHI. By adding this test battery to the athlete's other physical and neurologic tests, the decision to return an athlete to competition after MHI can be made with greater confidence and with less risk of reinjury.
