Effect of Concussion on Reaction Time and Neurocognitive Factors: Implications for Subsequent Lower Extremity Injury.
Tyler Ray, Daniel Fleming, Daniel Le and 8 others
PMID 35949376WHAT IT FOUND
After athletes were cleared to return to sport, concussion history did not mean slower reaction time or slower King-Devick scores.
The concussed group actually had a better reaction time score than matched healthy athletes, while King-Devick times were unchanged.
Key findings
01The concussed group had a better simple reaction time score than the healthy group (14.6 ± 4.2 cm versus 18.7 ± 2.5 cm; p = 0.024).
02King-Devick scores did not differ significantly between groups (concussed 46.7 ± 18.2 seconds; healthy 43.8 ± 6.6 seconds; p = 0.939).
03The study did not examine subsequent musculoskeletal injury, so it cannot show whether these test results predict injury risk.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study included only 12 concussed athletes and 8 healthy controls, so the groups were small and the unexpected better reaction time score may reflect biased sampling. Time from concussion to clearance varied widely (60.9 ± 54.0 days), so participants were not at a comparable stage of recovery. No later musculoskeletal injuries were tracked, so the paper cannot say whether these test scores predict injury risk. The reaction-time result is reported in centimetres in the text but as seconds in Table 1, which makes the unit and scale unclear.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the faster reaction time score as evidence that concussion improves reaction time, and do not treat these tests as a stand-alone return-to-sport screen. The sample was very small, the result was unexpected, and no later injury outcomes were measured.