Athletes with a concussion history in the last two years have impairments in dynamic balance performance.

The purpose of this study was to determine if National Collegiate Athletics Association Division 1 American Football and Ice Hockey athletes with a history of concussion have impaired dynamic balance control when compared to healthy control athletes. This cross-sectional observational study recruited 146 athletes; 90 control athletes and 56 athletes with a history of concussion. Athletes were tested during a pre-season evaluation using the inertial-sensor instrumented Y Balance Test. Independent variables were normalised reach distance, gyroscope magnitude sample entropy and jerk magnitude root-mean-square. Kruskal-Wallis H test and Dunn-Bonferroni analysis demonstrated that individuals with a concussion history within the last two years have statistically significantly lower jerk magnitude root-mean-square in the posteromedial (Z = 23.22, P = 0.015) and posterolateral (Z = 24.64, P = 0.010) reach directions, when compared to the control group. There was no significant difference between those who sustained a concussion longer than two years ago and the control group for the posteromedial (Z = -1.25; P = 0.889) and posterolateral (Z = 6.44; P = 0.469) directions. These findings show that athletes with a concussion history within the last two years possess dynamic balance deficits, when compared to healthy control athletes. Conversely, athletes whose injury occurred greater than two years ago possessed comparable performance to the healthy controls. This suggests that sensorimotor control deficits may persist beyond clinical recovery, for up to two years. Therefore, clinicians should integrate balance training interventions into the return-to-play process to accelerate sensorimotor recovery and mitigate the risk of future injury.