4.5 Adolescents with concussion who exercise more than 150 minutes/week demonstrate sleep quality improvements
Year: 2024
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Objective To examine whether a high volume of aerobic exercise after concussion (>150 minutes/week) is associated with improved sleep quality over a one-month period. Design Prospective, repeated measures cohort study. Setting Single primary care sports medicine center. Assessment of risk factors Adolescents were diagnosed and initially assessed ≤2 weeks post-concussion, returning for a follow-up assessment 4 weeks later. Between assessments, they wore an activity tracker, recording each exercise session. Participants were grouped according to mean exercise volume (high: >150 vs. low/moderate: ≤150 minutes/week). Outcome Measures Participants completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and Post-Concussion Symptom Inventory (PCSI). PSQI change score was calculated as the difference in scores between visits (follow-up minus initial: positive score indicates sleep quality improvement). Main Results Of 28 adolescents enrolled (mean age=14.3±1.9 years; 61% female), N=12 (43%) exercised >150 minutes/week between assessments. There were no significant between-group differences in initial PCSI (38.5 [95% CI=19.8–57.2] vs. 40.4 [30.4–50.5]; p=0.83) or PSQI scores (8.1 [5.5–10.6] vs. 8.7 [7.0–10.2]; p=0.69), or the proportion who began physical activity before initial assessment (42% vs. 31%; p=0.57). The high exercisers demonstrated significantly greater mean PSQI score improvement across assessments than the low/moderate exercisers (4.8 [2.8–6.9] vs. 1.5 [-0.7–3.7] point improvement; p=0.03), with a large effect size (Cohen’s d=0.88). Conclusions Post-concussion exercise recommendations typically consist of 100 minutes/week. Our findings suggest that a higher exercise volume (>150 minutes/week) was associated with greater sleep quality improvements than those who did not exercise at this level over the month post-concussion. Trial Registration NCT04199247
Institutions: Children's Hospital Colorado, University of Colorado Anschutz
Language: English
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4391384489