METHODS: In a prospective multicenter study, we examined 507 (74 females) active professional athletes between 18 and 40 years of age from five different contact sports (soccer, handball, American football, basketball, and ice hockey). Data collection involved concussion history, clinical symptom evaluation, neurocognitive assessment, and the collection of other sports-related information. Composite scores were built for clinical symptoms (such as neck pain and balance disturbances) and for neurocognitive symptoms (such as memory and attention impairments).
RESULTS: Athletes having suffered 3+ concussions in the past showed disproportionally higher clinical symptom severity than athletes with less than three concussions across all sports. The level of clinical symptom burden in athletes with 3+ concussions indicated mild impairment. The number of past concussions did not affect neurocognitive performance.
CONCLUSIONS: Repeated sports-related concussions appear to have a cumulative impact on clinical-but not cognitive-symptom severity. Although clinical symptom burden in athletes with 3+ concussions in the past was not alarmingly high yet in our sample, increased caution should be advised at this point. Despite few exceptions, results are similar for different contact sports, suggesting a similar multidisciplinary concussion management across all types of sport.
方法:在一项前瞻性多中心研究中,我们从五种不同的接触运动(足球,手球,美式足球,篮球,和冰上曲棍球)。数据收集涉及脑震荡病史,临床症状评估,神经认知评估,以及其他体育相关信息的收集。针对临床症状(例如颈部疼痛和平衡障碍)和神经认知症状(例如记忆力和注意力障碍)建立综合评分。
结果:过去遭受3次以上脑震荡的运动员比所有运动中脑震荡少于3次的运动员表现出更高的临床症状严重程度。3次脑震荡的运动员的临床症状负担水平表明轻度损害。过去脑震荡的次数并不影响神经认知能力。
结论:反复运动相关的脑震荡似乎对临床症状严重程度有累积影响,但对认知症状严重程度无影响。尽管在我们的样本中,过去有3次以上脑震荡的运动员的临床症状负担并不高得惊人,在这一点上应该更加谨慎。尽管很少有例外,不同的接触运动结果相似,建议在所有类型的运动中进行类似的多学科脑震荡管理。