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Study: No link between adolescent football play and neurocognitive function
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No link was seen between adolescent participation in football and neurocognitive functional abilities later in life, according to data presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting.
“The correlation between the number of years of football participation and the performance on the digit symbol substitution [DSS] does not support the hypothesis that participation in collision sport negatively affects neurocognitive function,” Gregory W. Stewart, MD, co-director of the Sports Medicine Program and associate professor of orthopaedics at Tulane School of Medicine, in New Orleans, and colleagues wrote in the abstract of their study.
The researchers retrospectively reviewed 1,289 New Orleans high school football players who had a mean age of 15.9 years and a mean playing time of 4.4 years between August 1998 and August 2001. In addition to years of play and age, they reviewed the players’ concussion history and DSS, pure reaction time (PRT) and choice reaction time (CRT).
Stewart and colleagues found no significant association between years of football participation and PRT or CRT. However, they noted that age was significantly positively related to DSS performance, but when they controlled for age the year of playing football remained significantly and positively associated with DSS results, according to the abstract. The researchers noted there was not an association between history of concussion and DSS even though they added concussion to the model, used along with years of football participation.
Four percent of the athletes in the study suffered a sport concussion, based on the results.
“These data have important implications for athletes and medical evaluations of the functional risks associated with collision sport participation,” Stewart and colleagues wrote in the abstract.
Reference:
Stewart G. Paper #768. Presented at: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting; March 11-15, 2014; New Orleans.
Disclosure: Stewart has no relevant financial disclosures.