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Recently, there has been an emphasis on collecting large datasets in the field of sports medicine. While there have been great advances in areas of sport performance and sport epidemiology, there have been fewer efforts dedicated to understanding the effectiveness and impact of athletic healthcare, including injury prevention programs and rehabilitation interventions provided at the point-of-care. In 2009, the Athletic Training Practice-Based Research Network (AT-PBRN) was launched to address this need, with the mission of improving the quality of care provided by athletic trainers. Unlike other research efforts in sports and medicine, such as sport epidemiology, there are fewer methodological best practices specifically related to clinical data in athletic healthcare. As a result, the AT-PBRN has encountered several methodological challenges during its tenure and has established guidelines based on various sources within the fields of sports and medicine to address these challenges. Therefore, the purpose of this perspective is to identify the challenges and describe strategies to address these challenges related to characterizing athletic healthcare using a large database. Specifically, challenges related to data entry (data quality and reliability) and data extraction and processing (data variability and missing data) will be discussed. Sharing challenges and perspectives on solutions for collecting and reporting on athletic healthcare data may facilitate a greater consistency in the approach used to collect, analyze, and report on clinical data in athletic healthcare, with the goal of improving patient outcomes and the quality of care provided by athletic trainers.

Conventional management for concussion involves prescribed rest and progressive return to activity. Recent evidence challenges this notion and suggests that active approaches may be effective for some patients. Previous concussion consensus statements provide limited guidance regarding active treatment.

Establishing psychometric and measurement properties of concussion assessments is important before these assessments are used by clinicians. To date, data have been limited regarding these issues with respect to neurocognitive and postural stability testing, especially in a younger athletic population.To determine the test-retest reliability and reliable change indices of concussion assessments in athletes participating in youth sports. A secondary objective was to determine the relationship between the Standardized Assessment of Concussion (SAC) and neuropsychological assessments in young athletes.We used a repeated-measures design to evaluate the test-retest reliability of the concussion assessments in young athletes. Correlations were calculated to determine the relationship between the measures. All subjects underwent 2 test sessions 60 days apart.Sports medicine laboratory and school or home environment.Fifty healthy young athletes between the ages of 9 and 14 years.Scores from the SAC, Balance Error Scoring System, Buschke Selective Reminding Test, Trail Making Test B, and Coding and Symbol Search subsets of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children were used in the analysis.Our test-retest indices for each of the 6 scores were poor to good, ranging from r = .46 to .83. Good reliability was found for the Coding and Symbol Search tests. The reliable change scores provided a way of determining a meaningful change in score for each assessment. We found a weak relationship ( r.36) between the SAC and each of the neuropsychological assessments; however, stronger relationships ( r.70) were found between certain neuropsychological measures.We found moderate test-retest reliability on the cognitive tests that assessed attention, concentration, and visual processing and the Balance Error Scoring System. Our results demonstrated only a weak relationship between performance on the SAC and the selected neuropsychological tests, so it is likely that these tests assess somewhat different areas of cognitive function. Our correlational findings provide more evidence for using the SAC along with a more complex neuropsychological assessment battery in the evaluation of concussion in young athletes.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the immediate effects of a whole-body fatigue protocol on performance of the Balance Error Scoring System (BESS), a postural-stability test commonly used as part of a concussion-assessment battery. DESIGN AND SETTING: Subjects were assigned to a fatigue or control group and were assessed before and immediately after a 20-minute fatigue protocol or rest period. SUBJECTS: Fourteen fatigue subjects and 13 control subjects participated in this study. All subjects were male and free of vestibular disorders, and none had suffered a mild head injury or lower extremity injury in the preceding 6 months, as described through self-report. MEASUREMENTS: We measured performance on the BESS for 9 stance-surface conditions and summed each condition to obtain a total score. Using the Borg scale, we also measured ratings of perceived exertion before, during, and after the fatigue protocol or rest period. RESULTS: We found a significant increase in total errors from pretest to posttest in the fatigue group (14.36 +/- 4.73 versus 16.93 +/- 4.32), a significant decrease in errors in the control group (13.32 +/- 3.77 versus 11.08 +/- 3.88), and a significant difference between groups on the posttest. The rating of perceived exertion scores were significantly different between the fatigue and control groups at the middle (13.29 +/- 1.59 versus 6.23 +/- 0.83) and end (15.86 +/- 2.38 versus 6.15 +/- 0.55) of the fatigue or rest period. CONCLUSIONS: The BESS error scores increased immediately after the fatigue protocol, demonstrating that balance ability diminished. Clinicians who use the BESS as part of their sideline assessment for concussion should not administer the test immediately after a concussion due to the effects of fatigue.