Reliability of Objective Eye-Tracking Measures Among Healthy Adolescent Athletes

Abstract

Automated and quantitative eye movement and conjugacy metrics provide relatively stable measurements among a group of healthy youth athletes. Thus, their inclusion as a visual tracking metric may be complementary to other visual examination techniques when monitoring concussion recovery across time.

Tandem Gait Test-Retest Reliability Among Healthy Child and Adolescent Athletes

“…We selected this timeline based on a typical testing timeline of individuals receiving care at a sport concussion clinic, beginning initially after injury and continuing until they are cleared for return to full athletic participation. 17 In addition, this time frame was consistent with the time frames in other concussion test-retest studies. [17][18][19] Outcome Measures All testing was conducted in a hallway free of distracting visual or auditory stimuli, where participants completed the tandem gait test protocol.…”

“…17 In addition, this time frame was consistent with the time frames in other concussion test-retest studies. [17][18][19] Outcome Measures All testing was conducted in a hallway free of distracting visual or auditory stimuli, where participants completed the tandem gait test protocol. Consistent with procedures used in previous studies, 10,20,21 participants completed singletask and dual-task tandem gait test batteries.…”

“…32 However, the advantage of the tandem gait paradigm is the ability to assess motor function objectively without the technological requirements needed for instrumented gait assessments. Furthermore, our results suggest that reliability of the tandem gait test exceeded that of other objective tests that have been used in concussion evaluations (eg, eye tracking 17 or Trail Making Test performance). 19 Thus, even though several assessments are available for use in the multifaceted evaluation of concussion, the high test-retest reliability and objective nature of the tandem gait test indicate it may be a worthwhile and useful addition for clinical decision making and may complement existing tests such as the BESS.…”

Objective Eye Tracking Deficits Following Concussion for Youth Seen in a Sports Medicine Setting

“…9,10 We selected 17 variables to analyze within this investigation based on prior work that has used this experimental setup to define eye movement velocity, movement distance, or trajectory areas. 5,9 Many of these variables possess moderate levels of reliability among uninjured adolescent athletes, 16 and evaluate the distance the eye traverses during the trial, the variability of movement of each eye, and the ratio of the movement and variability of the 2 eyes moving together. The total distance covered refers to the amount of measured eye movement in each plane along each side (top, bottom, left, and right) of the computer monitor.…”

“…9,10 Eye position data (X and Y coordinates) from both eyes were obtained independently at 500 Hz. For each frame throughout the trial, the X (horizontal) and Y (vertical) pupil positions were tracked automatically, representing the 2 orthogonal components of the pupil reflection, in line with previously established methods 10,16 to create a box trajectory of each eye movement. The 10 seconds at the beginning and end of the trial were discarded to reduce potential noise from the eye tracking signal.…”