U of A study to focus on youth sports concussions
Goal is to identify co-ordination, balance troubles current tests fail to diagnose
Researchers at the University of Alberta are looking for participants to help test new methods of assessing balance issues that can linger after a concussion.
Thaer Manaseer, a PhD student with the faculty of rehabilitation medicine at the University of Alberta, is developing a new suite of tests that he believes can better diagnose issues in balance and co-ordination suffered by youth healing from sports-related concussions that could be missed with current tests.
“We believe they may not be capturing different types of balance disturbances out there,” Manaseer said Wednesday.
Before athletes return to sport after a concussion, clinicians and coaches test their readiness by looking at their gait, asking them to walk heel-to-toe in a straight line, and how well they can balance on one foot with their eyes closed.
While Manaseer said these tests are cheap and effective, they may miss subtle signs of lingering neurological deficits affecting an athlete’s balance, putting them at risk or reinjuring themselves if they return to sports to soon.
“We believe the tools might help us to minimize the risk of sustaining such injuries in the future,” Manaseer said.
These new tests include more challenging sports-specific tasks, such as running between different targets. Clinicians can then look at reaction time between hearing which target to run to and completing the action, see how the athlete performs a wider range of movement and how fast they can complete the task, comparing those results to a set of base standards.
Jackie Whittaker, assistant professor in the faculty of rehabilitation medicine, research director of the Glen Sather Sports Medicine Clinic and one of Manaseer’s PhD supervisors, said they are working to develop more rigorous tests that are still simple enough to perform without a specialized clinic.
“We don’t want the test to be something that requires high-tech equipment or that would cost a lot. We want them to be tests that can be done in a clinic or on a field,” Whittaker said.
Adults usually recover from concussion symptoms in a week or two, Whittaker said, but research shows youth can take twice as long to heal.
While most of the common symptoms of a concussion — including headaches, irritability, disrupted sleep, a feeling of imbalance and fogginess — go away after a short period of time, “there are still underlying neurological deficits that exist,” Whittaker said. These deficits can affect a person’s ability to balance.
Prior research has shown that athletes who have had a concussion are not only more likely to suffer another concussion, Whittaker said, but may be at higher risk of sustaining other sports-related injuries such as sprained ankles and knees.
By developing more rigorous tools, Whittaker hopes to add to a growing body of research surrounding post-concussion related injuries that can be used to help prevent them.
Researchers are looking for 68 participants to help put these new tools to the test — 34 youth between the ages of 13 and 18 who have never had a sports-related concussion, and another 34 within the same age range who have had a sports-related concussion and have returned to sports within the previous month.
Those interested are asked to send an email to elmanase@ualberta.ca