Online monitoring of brain health in former athletes

Boucher, Ellen Frances (2024) Online monitoring of brain health in former athletes. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

Growing evidence suggests that sport-related repetitive head impacts (RHI) increase risk of dementia. Longitudinal, prospective cohort studies are now needed to address remaining research gaps. This thesis aimed to evaluate the acceptability and validity of an online longitudinal study that monitors former athletes’ brain health, to examine the study’s first dataset, and to explore methods of improving representativeness.

Acceptability was qualitatively explored after one and five assessment repetitions. Participants found the study acceptable due to low burden, high accessibility, and high comfort. The study’s feedback process, where participants can monitor their performance, met their expectations of ethicality and promoted motivation to participate.

The online format was compared to in-person testing to examine validity for assessing brain health. Findings from a mixed methods study reported quantitative validity of the online tests, and demonstrated qualitative contributors to validity that could influence results.

Quantitative analysis of the study’s first dataset demonstrated significant relationships between sport related RHIs and poorer cognition, mental health, and behavioural outcomes in professional and amateur male athletes. Similar trends were demonstrated in female contact sport athletes, but further investigation is needed to better identify long-term effects in females and potential sex-differences.

To improve the representativeness of the study’s dataset, a narrative review explored the definitions of elite female athletes in previous research. This review found considerable variation of definitions and proposes a new approach to unifying definitions of elite and improving inclusion of female athletes in research.

This thesis demonstrates the strengths of a novel approach towards monitoring the brain health of former athletes. Key learnings from this thesis include methods for improving recruitment and retention in longitudinal studies, influences on validity of online brain health assessments, and strategies to facilitate analysis of exposure to contact sport on brain health in male and female, professional and amateur athletes.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Health Sciences
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	19 Dec 2024 08:56
Last Modified:	19 Dec 2024 08:56
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98031
DOI:

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