Neural, Behavioral and Psychological Effects of Injury in Athletes

Abstract

Injury is one of the unfortunate risks that collegiate athletes arefaced with today. Even worse, is the possibility that some athletesexperience reinjury or Multiples injuries during their athletic careers.Athletes who experience multiple injuries are often labeled as injuryprone and are treated numerous times for their physical injuries, butare never examined or treated for possible neural, behavioral orpsychological deficits. For standard orthopedic injuries, it is assumedthat the athlete is healthy once motor performance has reachedpre-injury levels. For athletes that suffer concussions, it is assumedthat the athlete is healthy once they are asymptomatic. Recent researchhas begun to target these misconceptions by providing data which suggestthat neural symptoms, behavioral and psychological factors may exist asa by product of injury. Additionally, if injured athletes harbor any ofthese deficits during return to play, they may become more susceptibleto re-injury. This paper attempts to attack the issue of re-injury byspecifically addressing the psychological issues of fear related tore-injury of all sorts as well as neural substrates and behavioraldeficits existing in concussed athletes. Using neural (EEG) basis ofbehavioral data (Balance), and psychological data (Tampa Scale ofKinesiophobia) we will ultimately be able to identify athletes at riskfor re-injury. The results presented differences in athletes related tofear levels and gender, severity of injury and number of injuriesexperienced.. EEG data was consistent in its findings in that concussedsubjects showed an increase in the frequency bands of delta and theta,and a decrease in alpha compared to non-concussed subjects. Differenceswere also found in Balance levels in which concussed subjects showedhigh levels of instability particularly during eyes closed conditions incomparison to non-concussed subjects. Specific data analysis gives riseto psychological interventions that may help to identify athletes atrisk for re-injury. With this identification athletes may seek thetraining needed to address neural, behavioral and psychologicaldeficits.