No abstract

Developmental conditions in adolescent athletes, such as ADHD and learning difficulties, are associated with a greater prevalence rate of prior concussion.

Little is known about the rate of concussions in adolescents with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We hypothesized that high school athletes with ADHD would report a greater history of concussion than students without ADHD. A total of 6529 adolescent and young adult student athletes, between the ages of 13 and 19 years (mean, 15.9; standard deviation, 1.3), completed a preseason health survey in 2010. Of those with ADHD, 26.1% reported a history of one or more concussions, compared to 17.1% of those without ADHD (p<0.00001; odds ratio [OR], 1.71). Stratified by gender, 27.0% of boys with ADHD reported a history of one or more concussions, compared to 20.0% of boys without ADHD (p<0.004; OR, 1.48), and 23.6% of girls with ADHD reported a history of one or more concussions, compared to 13.6% of girls without ADHD (p<0.003; OR, 1.97). Of those with ADHD, 9.8% reported a history of two or more concussions, compared to 5.5% of those without ADHD (p<0.0003; OR, 1.87). Stratified by gender, 10.0% of boys with ADHD reported a history of two or more concussions, compared to 6.7% of boys without ADHD (p<0.033; OR, 1.54), and 9.1% of girls with ADHD reported a history of two or more concussions, compared to 3.8% of girls without ADHD (p<0.006; OR, 2.51). In this large-scale, retrospective survey study, boys and girls with ADHD were significantly more likely to report a history of concussion. Additional research is needed to determine whether students with ADHD are more susceptible to injury (i.e., have a lower threshold) or have different recovery trajectories.

We sought to determine whether the exposure to the sub-concussive blows that occur during division III collegiate collision sports affect later life neurobehavioral quality-of-life measures. We conducted a cross-sectional study of alumni from four division III colleges, targeting those between the ages of 40-70 years, using several well-validated quality-of-life measures for executive function, general concerns, anxiety, depression, emotional and behavior dyscontrol, fatigue, positive affect, sleep disturbance, and negative consequences of alcohol use. We used multivariable linear regression to assess for associations between collision sport participation and quality-of-life measures while adjusting for covariates including age, gender, race, annual income, highest educational degree, college grades, exercise frequency, and common medical conditions. We obtained data from 3702 alumni, more than half of whom (2132) had participated in collegiate sports, 23% in collision sports, 23% in non-contact sports. Respondents with a history of concussion had worse self-reported health on several measures. When subjects with a history of concussion were removed from the analyses in order to assess for any potential effect of sub-concussive blows alone, negative consequences of alcohol use remained higher among collision sport athletes (β-coefficient 1.957, 95% CI 0.827-3.086). There were, however, no other significant associations between exposure to collision sports during college and any other quality-of-life measures. Our results suggest that, in the absence of a history of concussions, participation in collision sports at the Division III collegiate level is not a risk factor for worse long-term neurobehavioral outcomes, despite exposure to repeated sub-concussive blows.

Contrary to our hypothesis, we found medication use had only a subtle effect on cognitive performance and no significant effect on concussion-like symptom reporting. Student athletes reporting medication use for ADHD performed comparably to student athletes with no ADHD on baseline testing.