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V. Wong1, M. Holahan1
1Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
Background: Much of the current concussion literature focuses on youths, whereas adult athletes can also remain affected with prolonged symptoms. After concussions, declarative memory, such as sport-specific questions, and immediate and delayed recall of word lists are often assessed. However, episodic memory is not a commonly assessed cognitive domain. Episodic memory evaluates the ability to recall personal experiences and events and is a type of long-term memory. As well, we hypothesized that adult athletes with prolonged symptoms after sport-related concussion would have more difficulty with their episodic memory versus controls.
Purpose: This project was created to examine the effects of prolonged symptoms on episodic memory amongst adult athletes after sport-related concussion. This may be another type of memory to focus evaluation on when preparing for return-to-play. As well, we wanted to see if the Means-End Problem-Solving Procedure (MEPS), a test for episodic memory, would be an acceptable outcome measure for this population.
Methods: Our main outcome measure, the MEPS, used short vignettes of real-life experiences to evaluate episodic memory. The vignettes give the start and end of a short story based on real-life experiences or events and asks the participant to provide the middle of the story relying on their own memory of experiences. There were four stories included in this pilot that asked about relationships with a partner, a boss, a neighbour, and friends. This pilot study evaluated a small group of athletes with prolonged symptoms and healthy controls.
Results: A relevancy score was achieved for each vignette that demonstrated the difference between relevant and non-relevant details in the middle part of the story written by the participant. A comparison between the two groups showed a significant difference for 2 of the 4 vignettes (p=0.035 and p=0.009). This showed that those with prolonged symptoms had more non-relevant details than relevant details in their stories than the healthy controls. This would support the hypothesis that they had more difficulties with their episodic memory in recalling relevant details from their personal history.
Conclusion(s): The conclusion from this pilot study is that the MEPS may be a useful outcome measure for assessing episodic memory and that episodic memory remains affected in adults with prolonged symptoms post-sport-related concussion. Future research is needed with a larger sample to conclude more robust conclusions.
Implications: This project has identified a useable outcome measure for assessing another type of memory deficit in the adult athlete population who still have prolonged symptoms from a sport-related concussion. This is an easy to administer and evaluate outcome measure. Also, it is important to evaluate all cognitive function before allowing an athlete to return to their sport and this highlights a less studied area.
Funding, acknowledgements: This project was not funded.
Keywords: sport-related concussion, memory, cognition
Topic: Sport & sports injuries
Did this work require ethics approval? Yes
Institution: Carleton University
Committee: CUREB-B
Ethics number: 110023
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
