Development and reliability of a visual-cognitive medial side hop for return to sport testing.
Byrnadeen T Farraye, Meredith Chaput, Janet E Simon and 3 others
PMID 35921780WHAT IT FOUND
Adding a rapid visual memory task to a medial side hop reduced hopping distance by 9.69% in healthy college athletes.
The combined test showed excellent reliability, offering a potential tool to assess return-to-sport readiness under cognitive load.
Key findings
01The visual-cognitive medial side hop test demonstrated excellent reliability with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.86.
02Performing the visual-cognitive task simultaneously with the hop significantly decreased maximum hop distance by 9.69% compared to the traditional hop.
03Cognitive and physical error rates did not significantly change when adding the visual task to the hop compared to baseline.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
Participants were healthy, college-aged recreational athletes, so results may not generalize to injured populations or elite athletes. Shoes were not standardized during testing, which could influence hopping performance. Task familiarization or learning effects may have occurred between the two visits, as the dual-task cost reduced from day one to day two. The visual task only tested rapid visual encoding and working memory, not the full range of cognitive demands in sport.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest and stated there were no financial relationships with any manufacturers.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume this test is validated for injured athletes returning to sport. The study only included healthy participants, and the dual-task cost observed here may differ in populations with existing neuromuscular deficits or fear of re-injury.