It’s that time of year – time to get ready for a new school year and a new sports season! Pre-season testing of symptoms, cognition, and balance often utilizes multiple tests to determine a “baseline” to which athletes’ performances can later be compared if they are suspected to sustain a concussion throughout the season. New research demonstrates the order in which baseline tests are administered may affect scores and performance – proposing the following order of test administration to decrease the likelihood of various factors (such as changes in fatigue, motivation, etc.) influencing baseline performances: 1)ImPACT, 2)Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC), 3) Balance Error Scoring System (BESS), 3)SCAT symptom checklist.
For more information, check out the article recently published in Sports Medicine: Lempke, L. B., Lynall, R. C., Anderson, M. N., McCrea, M. A., McAllister, T. W., Broglio, S. P., & Schmidt
J. D. (2022). Optimizing order of administration for concussion baseline assessment among NCAA student-athletes and military cadets. Sports Medicine, 52(1), 165-176.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-021-01493-y