Brian Szekely, Sushma Alphonsa, Katelyn Grimes, Barry Munkasy, Thomas Buckley, Nicholas Murray
Szekely et al., J Clin Transl Res 2020; 5(S4): 6
Published online: April 16, 2020
Abstract
Background: Repetitive head impacts (RHI) have received more notice over the last decade. More sensitive measures, such as postural control have been used to evaluate if there are biomechanical changes after RHI exposure. Similar to the clinical findings, most of the studies have failed to find any signficant changes across an athletic season. However, these studies included those with a concussion history and only assessed postural control in the eyes open (EO) condition, rather than in both the EO and eyes closed (EC) conditions.
Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate postural control changes during quiet stance following a season of RHI in Division I football athletes who did not have a prior diagnosed SRC compared to a group of non RHI athletes with no history of a diagnosed sport related concussion.
Methods: Eighteen male Division I athletes were recruited and met the inclusion criteria: 9 football athletes (RHI group) and 9 baseball athletes (CON group). All athletes performed three 30s trials while standing with feet together on a force platform during EC and EO conditions. Center of pressure data were analyzed with Sample Entropy (SampEn) in the anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) directions. SampEn data were analyzed with a three level linear mixed effects model or the multilevel model; with the three levels being: condition, time, and group.
Results: The analysis reported no significant effect for SampEn AP, but reported a significant three-way interaction (Group by Task by Time) for SampEn ML. Specifically, SampEn ML was significantly higher for EC than EO for both groups.
Conclusions: There are postural control changes from pre- to post- season, with the main contributer being EC postural control. Thus there could be a change in the sensory reweighting dynamics due to RHI and the effect of sport.
Relevance for patients: RHI may be better assessed in the clinical setting with EC, rather than with EO. Furthermore, clinicians should include tasks that deprive sensory inputs to examine the effects of RHI.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18053/jctres.05.2020S4.006
Author Affiliation
1 Psychology Department, University of Nevada, Reno, 89557
2 School of Community Health Sciences, University of Nevada, Reno, 89557
3 Athletic Department, University of Richmond, Virginia, 23173
4 Waters College of Professional Health Sciences, Department of Health Sciences and Kinesiology, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA.
5 Department of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, 19713
*Corresponding author
Nicholas G. Murray
School of Community Health Sciences, University Of Nevada, Reno, 1664 N. Virginia Street, Reno, NV 89557
Tel: (775) 682-8347
Fax: (755) 784-1340
Email: nicholasmurray@unr.edu
Handeling editor:
Michal Heger
Department of Pharmaceutics, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Department of Pharmaceutics, Jiaxing University Medical College, Zhejiang, China
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