Visuomotor Response Time in Children with a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Objective: Compare the visuomotor response times of children after a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) with those of noninjured children matched for age, sex, and premorbid level of physical activity.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: Pediatric trauma center.

Participants: Thirty-eight children aged 7 to 16 years in each group. Children with mTBI had a mean Glasgow Coma Scale score of 14.8 and were considered normal on a neurological assessment carried out at the time of hospital discharge. Noninjured children were friends of those with mTBI.

Intervention: Assessments of response time were conducted at 1, 4, and 12 weeks after mTBI and at corresponding time intervals for the control children.

Main Outcome Measures: The response speed subtest of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency (BOTMP); reaction and movement time for upper and lower extremities, for simple, choice, and reversed choice response time paradigms.

Results: Over the assessment period, children with mTBI performed worse than the control group only on the response speed subtest of the BOTMP. The mTBI children however tended to have slower movement times 1 week postinjury for the reversed choice response time paradigm for the lower extremities.

Conclusions: Some children with mTBI may have some problems in response time persisting until 12 weeks postinjury. Further research is required to better identify and understand the severity of these problems and determine their impact, if any, on participation in physical activities.