Integrating neurophysiological and functional outcomes: Opportunities to improve clinical care for individuals with concussion

Although concussions are a common injury in sport and recreational activities, they remain one of the most difficult injuries for clinicians to diagnose and manage.

Concussions are currently diagnosed based on findings from a comprehensive clinical examination, often with support from symptom, balance, and cognitive outcomes. Rehabilitation interventions can be safely implemented in individuals diagnosed with concussion, but current treatments focus on functional deficits and are often generic in nature.

Despite considerable attention and efforts in concussion research over the last two decades, knowledge gaps surrounding the neurophysiological deficits patients experience following concussion and how these outcomes can be harnessed to optimize concussion diagnosis and management remain.

In this presentation, I will discuss current and future planned work describing how electroencephalography (EEG) and functional outcomes can be integrated to improve injury diagnosis and personalize rehabilitation strategies to the unique deficits of each patient.