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Neuropsychological test performance of former American football players

2023; BioMed Central; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1186/s13195-022-01147-9

1758-9193

Michael L. Alosco, William Barr, Sarah J. Banks, Jennifer V. Wethe, Justin B. Miller, Surya Pulukuri, Julia Culhane, Yorghos Tripodis, Charles H. Adler, Laura J. Balcer, Charles Bernick, Megan Mariani, Robert C. Cantu, David W. Dodick, Michael D. McClean, Rhoda Au, Jesse Mez, Robert Turner, Joseph Palmisano, Brett Martin, Kaitlin Hartlage, Jeffrey L. Cummings, Eric M. Reiman, Martha E. Shenton, Robert A. Stern, Yi Su, Kewei Chen, Hillary Protas, Connie Boker, Lindsay A. Farrer, Robert Helm, Douglas I. Katz, Neil W. Kowall, Gustavo Mercier, James Otis, Jason Weller, Irene Simkin, Alondra Andino, Shannon E. Conneely, Courtney Diamond, Tessa Fagle, Olivia Haller, Tennyson Hunt, Nicole Gullotti, Brian Mayville, Kathleen McLaughlin, Mary Nanna, Taylor Platt, Fiona Rice, Madison Sestak, Douglas S. Annis, Christine E. Chaisson, Diane Dixon, Carolyn Finney, Kerrin Gallagher, Jun Lü, EO Ojo, Brittany Pine, Janani Ramachandran, Sylvain Bouix, Jennifer Fitzsimmons, Alexander P. Lin, Inga K. Koerte, Ofer Pasternak, Hector Arciniega, Tashrif Billah, Elena M. Bonke, Katherine M. Breedlove, Eduardo Coello, Michael J. Coleman, Leonhard Jung, Huijun Liao, Maria Loy, Elizabeth Rizzoni, Vivian Schultz, Annelise Silva, Brynn Vessey, Tim L. T. Wiegand, Aaron Ritter, Marwan N. Sabbagh, Raelynn de la Cruz, Jan Durant, Morgan Golceker, Nicolette Harmon, Kaeson Kaylegian, Rachelle Long, Christin Nance, Priscilla Sandoval, Kenneth Marek, Andrew Serrano, Yonas E. Geda, Bryce W. Falk, Amy Duffy, Marci Howard, Michelle Montague, Thomas Osgood, Debra Babcock, Patrick S.F. Bellgowan, Judith D. Goldberg, Thomas Wısnıewskı, Ivan I. Kirov, Yvonne W. Lui, Charles R. Marmar, Lisena Hasanaj, Liliana Serrano, Alhassan Al-Kharafi, Allan George, Sammie Martin, Edward P. Riley, William Runge, Elaine R. Peskind, Elizabeth A. Colasurdo, Daniel S. Marcus, Jenny Gurney, Richard M. Greenwald, Keith A. Johnson,

Sport Psychology and Performance

Abstract Background Patterns of cognitive impairment in former American football players are uncertain because objective neuropsychological data are lacking. This study characterized the neuropsychological test performance of former college and professional football players. Methods One hundred seventy male former football players ( n =111 professional, n =59 college; 45–74 years) completed a neuropsychological test battery. Raw scores were converted to T -scores using age, sex, and education-adjusted normative data. A T -score ≤ 35 defined impairment. A domain was impaired if 2+ scores fell in the impaired range except for the language and visuospatial domains due to the limited number of tests. Results Most football players had subjective cognitive concerns. On testing, rates of impairments were greatest for memory (21.2% two tests impaired), especially for recall of unstructured (44.7%) versus structured verbal stimuli (18.8%); 51.8% had one test impaired. 7.1% evidenced impaired executive functions; however, 20.6% had impaired Trail Making Test B. 12.1% evidenced impairments in the attention, visual scanning, and psychomotor speed domain with frequent impairments on Trail Making Test A (18.8%). Other common impairments were on measures of language (i.e., Multilingual Naming Test [21.2%], Animal Fluency [17.1%]) and working memory (Number Span Backward [14.7%]). Impairments on our tasks of visuospatial functions were infrequent. Conclusions In this sample of former football players (most of whom had subjective cognitive concerns), there were diffuse impairments on neuropsychological testing with verbal memory being the most frequently impaired domain.