Case-Control Study Comparing the Relationship between Pain, Neurobehavioral Functioning and a History of Playing Professional Contact Sports

Abstract

Objective: Chronic pain is known to affect neurocognitive function- ing; retired professional athletes are at high risk of having chronic musculoskeletal pain. However, this relationship has not been in-vestigated in retired professional contact sport athletes who are sus- pected to have early neurocognitive decline due to repetitive head injuries during their careers. Participants: Twenty-one retired National Football League and National Hockey League players (Contact Sport, CS) and 21 age-matched non-contact sport athletic controls (Non-contact Sport, NS). Design: Case-control Main measures: Behavior Regulatory Index (BRI) and Metacogni- tive Index (MI) from Behavioral Rating Inventory of Executive Func-tion-Adult, anxiety from Beck Anxiety Index, depression from Beck Depression Inventory-II, and Pain Intensity and Interference from Patient Reported Outcome Measure Information System-43. Results: CS group reported significantly more pain intensity and interference (p<0.001) than NS. On exploratory binary logistic re-gressions, body mass index (p=0.039), pain interference (p=0.014), and anxiety (p=0.010) were significant predictors of BRI. Pain interference (p=0.002) was the sole significant predictor of MI. A history of playing contact sports was significant for neither. Conclusion: Our results suggest there may be important causes of early neurocognitive decline in this population other than just a history of playing contact sports.