Reliability and Sensitivity of a Virtual Assessment Developed for Workplace Concussions: Protocol for a...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Workplace mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) often cause persistent symptoms, impacting productivity and leading to disability.
• Rehabilitation for mTBI is crucial, but the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted challenges in delivering remote care.
• Current virtual concussion assessment tools lack documented psychometric properties and validation against in-person methods.

Purpose of the Study:

• To document the psychometric properties of clinical measures used in virtual concussion assessments.
• To compare the results of virtual assessments with traditional in-person evaluations.
• To determine the sensitivity, interrater reliability, and intrarater reliability of virtual concussion assessment tools.

Main Methods:

• A method-comparison study involving patients with acquired brain injuries undergoing both in-person and virtual assessments.
• Utilizing a previously developed virtual concussion assessment toolkit including tests for finger-to-nose, vestibular-ocular motor screening, balance, cervical range of motion, saccades, and effort.
• Virtual assessments conducted via Microsoft Teams, audio/video-recorded for subsequent blinded review by a second clinician to assess interrater and intrarater reliability and sensitivity.

Main Results:

• Recruitment of 7 clinician assessors and 39 patient participants as of May 2024, with study completion anticipated by September 2024.
• Data collection is ongoing to evaluate the psychometric properties of virtual assessment tools.

Conclusions:

• The comparability of virtual versus in-person concussion assessments remains largely unknown.
• This study is a foundational step in validating remote concussion assessment tools.
• Findings will provide critical information on the reliability and validity of virtual assessments for mTBI.