Table 4

Concussion assessment and outcome measurements among boxers and martial art fighters in the included studies

Ref.Study designMethod of assessing concussion and its definitionMeasurement of outcome(s)Prevalence of outcomeInternal comparisonBetween sports comparisonExternal comparison
Bang et al 201625 Case series with external comparison group

  • Concussion approximated by number of matches fought (bouts) and number of KO

Participants had a mean number of bout of 30 (range 23–37) and a mean number of KO of 1.4 (range 0–4)

  • Neurocognitive tests

  • Neuroimaging

  • Neurological tests

  • Personality tests

  • Mood

−

  • Boxers performed significantly worse in the delayed recall of visuospatial memory

  • Boxers performed significantly worse in the assembly task of the Purdue Pegboard test (p=0.028) but not in the other tasks

Bernick et al 201542 Cross-sectional study (baseline of a cohort study). with external comparison group

  • Fight Exposure Score (FES) function of cumulative fights and intensity of exposure26

Mean (range) KO sustained by professional boxers: 0.9 (0–13)
Mean (range) KO sustained by professional Martial Art Fighters: 0.6 (0–6)

  • Neurocognitive tests

  • Neuroimaging

  • Reduced processing speed in those exposed to more fights (p0.041), worse in boxers than MMA

  • Reduced processing speed in those with a higher FES with (p=0.023) with the effect increasing at high levels of FES (however, the effect was lost when restricting to participants within an impaired range

  • KO, knock-out; MMA, Mixed Martial Arts.