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Abstract Purpose This study investigates whether post-concussion sleep symptoms affect return-to-play timelines following sports-related concussion. We predict that athletes in the prolonged recovery group will report higher sleep cluster (reflecting worse sleep) scores. Method 53 athletes (F = 9.4%) completed a comprehensive neuropsychological battery within 14 days of being diagnosed with concussion. Symptomology was assessed using the Post- Concussion Symptom Scale (PCSS). Previous research demonstrated the utility of examining symptom clusters on the PCSS; PCSS Sleep Cluster was used to examine sleep disturbances in the current study. Athletes were divided into 3 groups based on their return-to-play timeline: Early (14 days), Normal (14–28 days), and Prolonged (28 days). Players were cleared to return-to-play by sports medicine. Results ANOVA results showed no differences between the Early, Normal, and Prolonged recovery groups in terms of sleep cluster symptoms, F(50) = 1.10, p = 0.34. These results are consistent with some previous research showing that athletes reporting high levels of sleep complaints do not perform worse on cognitive testing, which may explain, in part, why there are no differences in terms of return-to-play timelines. Conclusions Athletes with poor sleep at post-concussion did not show significant risk for an abnormal return-to-play time as there were no group differences. These findings are important as sleep complaints may not be a strong predictor for prolonged recovery. Instead, results suggest that poor sleep may influence symptom reporting but does not impede return-to-play timelines.
Berkey et al. (Sat,) studied this question.