A-37 Neuropsychological Functioning In Cognitively Normal And Impaired Aging NFL Retirees

Abstract

Abstract Objective Identify differences in neuropsychological (NP) functioning between older (≥ 50) National Football League (NFL) retirees and age-matched controls, and examine whether differences correlate to head-injury exposure. Method NFL retirees were diagnosed with normal cognition (n = 20), mild cognitive impairment (n = 19), or dementia (n = 5) using Jak and Bondi (2009) criteria and clinical consensus. Retirees were age-matched to either healthy controls (n = 18) or clinical controls with MCI (n = 21) or dementia (n = 5). MANCOVAs and partial correlations covarying for age and education compared retiree’s NP performances to controls, and examined whether differences in NP measures were correlated with number of concussions, or games and years played in the NFL. Results Cognitively normal (CN) retirees displayed lower processing speed, naming, and verbal memory (p’s < .05) than CN controls. Impaired retirees displayed worse processing speed and naming than impaired controls, but better verbal memory (p’s < .05). Only lower verbal memory performance in CN retirees significantly correlated with number of games (r = −.60) and years played (r = −.54). Conclusions Aging CN and impaired retirees performed worse on single measures of processing speed and naming, but their performances did not correlate to head-injury exposure. Verbal memory performance varied between CN (worse than controls) and impaired retirees (better than controls). Overall, results suggest some aging NFL players may be at risk for reduced verbal memory, but this relationship could diminish following onset of MCI. No clear dose-response relationship was observed between head-injury exposure and NP functioning. Future studies should examine longitudinal trajectories of NP performances in larger samples to elucidate these findings.