Like many other developments in sports medicine, clinical use of baseline testing began with professional teams and is starting to spread to the college and high school levels. Baseline neurologic testing measures an athlete's cognitive status before the season. Physicians use the results to gauge the cognitive effects of head injuries that occur during the season.
Testing generally focuses on memory, attention, mental processing speed, and motor speed.
Neuropsychological testing of athletes is patterned after that of nonathletes with brain injuries. The study of more than 2,300 athletes revealed that concussed athletes had subtle differences in measures of information processing speed when compared with controls. Lovell says many other studies are underway, including a multicenter study headed by Michael Collins, MA, at the University of Florida. Milhouse says he is cautiously optimistic about the usefulness of testing. The test reveals some subtleties that are helpful, says Milhouse, who is also team physician of baseball's Anaheim Angels.