Gordon A. Bloom

Sport psychology and concussion: new impacts to explore

In recent years, there has been great interest in examining the psychological effects of athletic injuries. This has also extended to interventions in which coping strategies have been suggested to enhance recovery. Concussive injuries, which are common to many sports, hold particular problems in this regard. For example, a concussed athlete may be prone to experience isolation, pain, anxiety, and disruption of daily life as a result of the injury. This may be a problem for individual sport athletes—for example, professional skiers—who do not have the support of team mates to help them through their rehabilitation and recovery, as well as team sport athletes whose team mates may inadvertently pressure them to return to play. Besides the physical loss resulting from an injury, there may also be psychological distress. Commonly reported emotion responses resulting from athletic injury have included anger, denial, depression, distress, bargaining, shock, and guilt.1–5 These are particularly seen in career ending injuries. Such emotional distress can negatively affect the athletes’ recovery process. “…concussed athletes in team sports seem to have fewer long term problems” Injured athletes have also reported feelings of isolation and loneliness. Researchers found that athletes prevented from participating in their activity have lost contact with their team, coach, and friends.6,7 For example, Gould et al 6 examined the emotional reactions of US national team skiers to season ending injuries and found that 66.6% cited lack of attention and isolation as a source of stress during their injury. …

Why university athletes choose not to reveal their concussion symptoms during a practice or game.

Objective:To determine why athletes decide not to seek medical attention during a game or practice when they believe they have suffered a concussion. Design:A retrospective survey. Setting:University Sport Medicine Clinic. Participants:A total of 469 male and female university athletes from several varsity team sports were participated in the study. Main Outcome Measures:Athletes were surveyed about the previous 12 months to identify specific reasons why those athletes who believed they had suffered a concussion during a game or practice decided not to seek attention at that time, how often these reasons occurred, and how important these reasons were in the decision process. Results:Ninety-two of the 469 athletes (19.6%) believed they had suffered a concussion within the previous 12 months while playing their respective sport, and 72 of these 92 athletes (78.3%) did not seek medical attention during the game or practice at least once during that time. Sports in which athletes were more likely to not reveal their concussion symptoms were football and ice hockey. The reason “Did not feel the concussion was serious/severe and felt you could still continue to play with little danger to yourself,” was listed most commonly (55/92) as a cause for not seeking medical attention for a presumed concussion. Conclusions:A significant percentage of university athletes who believed they had suffered a concussion chose not to seek medical attention at the time of injury. Improved education of players, parents, and coaches about the dangers of continuing to play with concussion symptoms may help improve reporting. Clinical Relevance:Medical staff should be aware that university athletes who believe they have suffered a concussion may choose not to volunteer their symptoms during a game or practice for a variety of personal and athletic reasons.

The role of coaches of wheelchair rugby in the development of athletes with a spinal cord injury

Wheelchair rugby allows individuals living with quadriplegia to compete in an elite-level sport. It is currently one of the fastest-growing disability sports in the world and is the only full contact sport played by athletes with a disability. The purpose of this study was to explore the personal experiences of wheelchair rugby coaches in the development of their athletes who had entered their sport after acquiring a spinal cord injury. Four elite wheelchair rugby coaches were interviewed using a semi-structured guide. Data collection and analyses followed an interpretative phenomenological approach. Participants discussed the myriad of roles they carried out as wheelchair rugby coaches and the diverse range of their coaching responsibilities. They also alluded to their philosophies in both the personal and athletic development of their athletes and the unique strategies they utilised with them. The results highlight the important role of a coach in facilitating athlete development in disability sport.

Ice hockey coaches' perceptions of athlete leadership.

The purpose of this study was to identify ice hockey coaches’ perceptions of the factors influencing athlete leadership. Semi-structured open-ended interviews were conducted with six high performance ice hockey coaches of elite 16- to 20-year-old athletes. The results indicated how coaches selected and developed their athlete leaders, how they fostered the coach-athlete leader relationship and the responsibilities of their athlete leaders. These results provide coaches with new information on how to identify and develop their athlete leaders, as well as how to cultivate positive relationships with them.

An examination of concussion education programmes: a scoping review methodology

Objectives The primary purpose was to review the literature on concussion education programmes. The secondary purpose was to inform knowledge translation strategies for concussion researchers and practitioners. Design Research on concussion education programmes is relatively new. As a result, the current study implemented a scoping review methodology, which is a type of literary search used to provide a preliminary assessment of the size and scope of a body of literature, as well as identify strengths, weaknesses and gaps in the research. Methods A five-stage process for conducting a scoping review was followed for this study: (a) identifying the research questions, (b) identifying relevant studies, (c) identifying the study selection criteria, (d) charting the data and (e) reporting the results. Results Concussion education programmes have been developed and implemented with populations ranging in age from 9 to 49 years and have used interactive oral presentations, educational videos and computer-based learning programmes. Although the content of these programmes varied, the topics generally addressed salient aspects of concussion injury and recovery. Quantitative instruments have been the preferred methods for assessment. Conclusions Education programmes aimed at improving participants’ long-term concussion knowledge, behaviours and attitudes of concussions are needed. Researchers must consider using a knowledge translation framework to enhance concussion education programmes. The application of such a framework can lead to novel and interesting ways of disseminating information about concussive injury and recovery.

The prevalence and recovery of concussed male and female collegiate athletes

Abstract The aims of the present study were two-fold: (1) to examine whether gender and explanatory style influence the number of concussions an athlete has sustained and the amount of time to recover from this type of injury; and (2) to determine whether gender and the type of sport influence the number of and recovery from concussion injuries. University varsity athletes (n=170) who had sustained at least one concussion over the previous 12 months from six sports completed both the Sport History Questionnaire (Delaney, Lacroix, Leclerc, & Johnston, 2000), used to measure concussions, and the Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982), used to measure explanatory style. Overall, males sustained more concussions than female athletes (F 1,153=43.92, P<0.05). Regarding the type of concussion, male athletes sustained more unrecognized concussions than female athletes (F 1,168=6.18, P<0.05), but there was no difference between the sexes for recognized concussions (F 1,168=0.44, P>0.05). Male basketball players took longer to recover (mean=6.17 days) than female basketball players (mean=1.15 days). In contrast, female hockey players took longer to recover (mean=9.56 days) than male hockey players (mean=1.00 day). Finally, gender did not influence an athletes explanatory style.

Coaches’ Perceptions of a Coach Training Program Designed to Promote Youth Developmental Outcomes

The purpose of this study was to investigate coaches’ perceptions on the impact of a coach training program designed to promote youth developmental outcomes. Participants were coaches of youth sport teams. Multiple methods were used to collect data. Coaches reported many benefits for themselves, their athletes, and their teams. They reported an increase in knowledge and a better understanding of their players. Participants perceived that the activities promoted cohesion and communication, while also contributing to the development of athlete competence, confidence, connection, and character/caring. The results provide guidance for creating and delivering coach training programs designed to promote youth developmental outcomes.

Team building for youth sport.

JOPERD • Volume 79 No. 9 • November/December 2008 A major component of physical activity for children is participation in team sports at both the recreational and the competitive levels. In Canada, over half (54%) of children ages fi ve to 14 are involved in sports on a yearly basis (Sport Canada, 2000). Similarly, in the United States, 39 percent of children ages nine to 13 participate in organized physical activity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002). Weinberg and Gould (2007) indicated that the primary reason children become involved and stay active in sport is to have fun. More precisely, a review of more than 1,000 male and female youth-sport participants’ reasons for athletic involvement ranked having fun fi rst, followed by skill improvement, challenge, and being physically fi t (Gill, Gross, & Huddleston, 1983). Unfortunately, youth sport participation begins declining after the age of 12. This fi nding is especially worrisome because that age is also a crucial time for the development of children’s social skills and self-esteem. A number of reasons have been proposed to account for this dropout behavior. These include personal aspects such as lack of desire, as well as social aspects such as negative experiences with coaches (Hedstrom & Gould, 2004; Wankel & Mummery, 1996). One way that coaches can improve the sporting environment is through group activities that promote team building. The purpose of this article is to explain the value, use, and advantages of team building for enhancing the youth sport experience.

An investigation of a formalized mentoring program for novice basketball coaches.

Motivational research over the past decade has provided ample evidence for the existence of two distinct motivational systems. Implicit motives are affect-based needs and have been found to predict spontaneous behavioral trends over time. Explicit motives in contrast represent cognitively based self-attributes and are preferably linked to choices. The present research examines the differentiating and predictive value of the implicit vs. explicit achievement motives for team sports performances. German students (N = 42) completed a measure of the implicit (Operant Motive Test) and the explicit achievement motive (Achievement Motive Scale-Sport). Choosing a goal distance is significantly predicted by the explicit achievement motive measure. By contrast, repeated performances in a team tournament are significantly predicted by the indirect measure. Results are in line with findings showing that implicit and explicit motive measures are associated with different classes of behavior.It has been argued that representative tasks are needed to understand the processes by which experts overcome their less skilled counterparts. Little is known, however, about the essential characteristics of these tasks. In this study we identified the degree to which a laboratory-based task of decision making in cricket batting represented in-situ performance. The in-situ task required skilled batters to play against a bowler across a range of delivery lengths. Skilled batsmen produced a transitional pattern of foot movements with front foot responses being dominant for balls landing 0 – 6m from the wicket and back foot responses for balls landing 8 – 14m from the wicket. In the laboratory-based task, the same batsmen viewed video footage of the same bowlers. Again, skilled batsmen responded with similar patterns of foot movement transitions. Novice batsmen produced a generic forward movement in response to all deliveries. We conclude that for decision making about delivery length, the laboratory-based task has a high degree of fidelity and reliability. The implications of these results are discussed in relation to the importance of establishing the necessary degree of fidelity of representative task designs in order to study perception and action more accurately.In this study the specific foci were as follows: (1) to identify profiles of athletes in the junior-to-senior transition (JST) based on their personal characteristics (athletic identity, self-estee ...The present research sheds light on the importance of physical activity with regards to self-concept in Spanish adolescents and considers physical exercise, family and academic variables. An explanatory and relational study was conducted. A total of 2,134 teenagers aged between 15 and 18 years old participated in the study. A descriptive and relational analysis by means of the ANOVA Test was also undertaken. The results obtained are discussed here taking into account the relevant specialised literature. It was found that two thirds of the students sampled did exercise regularly, team sports being the most popular. These learners presented a high degree of self-concept, particularly for the social and family dimensions. It can also be concluded from this study that better physical condition and appearance are related to sport engagement, and that physical activity is related to improved self image and to fostering social and family relationships.Previous research has shown that skilled football goalkeepers effectively utilised individualised visual search patterns to gather anticipatory cues from a penalty taker. Deceptive cues employed by a penalty taker induced lower save rates. However, it is unclear if goalkeeper visual search (percentage viewing time of areas of interest) differed between deceptive and non-deceptive conditions. This study investigated the effectiveness of using fake visual cues by the penalty taker, and corresponding visual search behaviours. Nine skilled goalkeepers simulated saves of 15 deceptive and 15 non-deceptive 2000ms clips by moving their hands left or right. Deception involved kicker’s gaze direction and approach angle. Deceptive trials had a lower percentage save rate. When two deceptive cues were combined, performance was further impaired. Available data for four participants showed individualised visual search patterns. In conclusion, using deceptive cues by a penalty taker is effective and individualised visual search behaviour was present.

Promoting Long Term Athlete Development in Cross Country Skiing Through Competency-Based Coach Education: A Qualitative Study

Coach education programs in Canada and abroad have recently been framed around Long Term Athlete Development (LTAD), a seven-stage model that is based on the physical, mental, emotional, and cognitive development of children and adolescents. To date, limited empirical research on LTAD exists. The primary objective of this study was to identify whether individuals who completed a coach education course acquired an understanding of LTAD and whether they integrated this knowledge into their coaching practice. The secondary purpose was to identify information that could be used to improve the coach education program as well as the effectiveness of youth sport coaching in cross-country skiing. Results indicated the course was an effective technique for delivering the core principles of LTAD to coaches with little or no prior knowledge of the concept. As well, coaches successfully integrated the principles of LTAD into their coaching practices. These results are discussed in regard to improving the effectiveness of youth sport coaching.