Preliminary Evidence for the Clinical Utility of Tactile Somatosensory Assessments of Sport-Related mTBI

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the clinical utility of tactile somatosensory assessments to assist clinicians in diagnosing sport-related mild traumatic brain injury (SR-mTBI), classifying recovery trajectory based on performance at initial clinical assessment, and determining if neurophysiological recovery coincided with clinical recovery. RESEARCH DESIGN: Prospective cohort study with normative controls. METHODS: At admission (n = 79) and discharge (n = 45/79), SR-mTBI patients completed the SCAT-5 symptom scale, along with the following three components from the Cortical Metrics Brain Gauge somatosensory assessment (BG-SA): temporal order judgement (TOJ), TOJ with confounding condition (TOJc), and duration discrimination (DUR). To assist SR-mTBI diagnosis on admission, BG-SA performance was used in logistic regression to discriminate cases belonging to the SR-mTBI sample or a healthy reference sample (pooled BG-SA data for healthy participants in previous studies). Decision trees evaluated how accurately BG-SA performance classified SR-mTBI recovery trajectories. RESULTS: BG-SA TOJ, TOJc, and DUR poorly discriminated between cases belonging to the SR-mTBI sample or a healthy reference sample (0.54–0.70 AUC, 47.46–64.71 PPV, 48.48–61.11 NPV). The BG-SA evaluated did not accurately classify SR-mTBI recovery trajectories (> 14-day resolution 48%, ≤14–day resolution 54%, lost to referral/follow-up 45%). Mann-Whitney U tests revealed differences in BG-SA TOJc performance between SR-mTBI participants and the healthy reference sample at initial clinical assessment and at clinical recovery (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: BG-SA TOJ, TOJc, and DUR appear to have limited clinical utility to assist clinicians with diagnosing SR-mTBI or predicting recovery trajectories under ecologically valid conditions. Neurophysiological abnormalities persisted beyond clinical recovery given abnormal BG-SA TOJc performance observed when SR-mTBI patients achieved clinical recovery.