A SPORTS CONCUSSION BASELINE IMPLEMENTED AT THE CONCLUSION OF A COLLEGIATE ATHLETE'S CAREER

Abstract

As concussion diagnosis persists as a major clinical challenge for sports medicine practitioners, there has been a heightened emphasis on concussion baselines. This has led to an increase in computerized neuro-psychological baselines that are initiated at the beginning of an athlete’s career and administered again upon a suspected concussion. However, their utility and reliability have been called into scrutiny. As the brain health of athletes rightly remains a key priority, there have been no studies positing a concussion baseline as part of an athlete’s exit health physical to document their brain health after their athletic career. The purpose of this report is to present a noncomputerized, objective, neurologically supported concussion baseline that can be used to document athletes’ brain health at the end of their careers. A total of 31 division-1 male collegiate football players were assessed using this baseline, and their data was reported.