Concussion Diagnosis Could Take Under 2 Minutes With This Easy Test

The King-Devick eye test could help parents and coaches know when a young athlete has experienced a concussion — and needs to be taken off the field. (Photo: Getty Images)

A quick, under-two-minute test that involves reading numbers off of pieces of paper could help parents and non-health professionals determine if their student-athlete has experienced a concussion — even in those as young as 5 years old.

Concussions are a kind of traumatic brain injury, caused by a hit to the head or body leading to the rapid back-and-forth movement of the head and brain. When this occurs, the brain bounces or twists in the skull, thereby damaging brain cells. Concussions experienced by young athletes in particular are a topic of concern, with reports of teens experiencing long-term effects after their brain injuries. San Francisco high-schooler Gary Lee continued to suffer the effects of a concussion more than seven months after his basketball injury, for instance. And the high-profile suicide of 22-year-old Ohio State University football player Kosta Karageorge is being examined for potential links to brain injury, after he wrote in a note to his mother that ”these concussions have my head all [messed] up.”

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Right now, concussions are diagnosed by health care professionals who look specifically for signs of head injury and mild traumatic brain injury. However, these signs can be hard to spot particularly if the impact occurs in the middle of a game or practice and the athlete doesn’t realize he or she experienced a concussion, or if there is no health care professional available to diagnose the injury.

The test examined in the new Journal of Neuro-Opththalmology study, called the King-Devick test, was developed by optometrists in 1976 and could help when only parents or coaches are around to deduce concussion. It’s been used before on college-age people, but researchers said this study is the first to examine its accuracy with children. It involves comparing a person’s baseline — meaning, pre-concussion — performance on a number-reading test with his or her performance post-concussion.

The study, conducted by researchers from the NYU Langone Concussion Center, involved 89 NCAA athletes from New York University and Long Island University and 243 younger athletes between ages 5 and 17, who were tracked by researchers over the course of their sports seasons (the younger athletes played on local youth ice hockey and lacrosse leagues).

At the beginning of their seasons, the study participants underwent baseline testing, which involved reading numbers from three cards from left to right as fast as they could. They were timed as they read each of the cards, and then those times were added together to create their baseline scores. The idea is this: If a person takes longer to read the cards after a head injury than before, the results indicate a concussion, researchers explained.

The demonstration and test cards used in the King-Devick test. (Photo: NYU Langone Concussion Center)

The researchers tracked the participants over the course of their seasons; by the end, 12 had experienced a concussion. The researchers found that those who had experienced a concussion had worse scores on the King-Devick test after their injury, compared with the scores of their non-concussed peers.

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The researchers also compared the accuracy of King-Devick with two other kinds of concussion tests — the Standardized Assessment of Concussion and the Timed Tandem Gait Test — and found that it outperformed those tests. Specifically, the King-Devick test was 92 percent accurate in distinguishing a person who experienced a concussion from someone who didn’t experience a concussion, while the Standardized Assessment of Concussion had a 68 percent accuracy and the Tandem Gait Test had an 87 percent accuracy.

However, the researchers stressed, only a health professional can officially diagnose concussion. And if a concussion is even remotely suspected, the athlete should be removed from play immediately.

A 2013 study by Safe Kids Worldwide showed concussions are responsible for 12 percent of sports-related ER visits by kids and teens. Concussions experienced in childhood have been linked with brain problems later in life. One study of NFL veterans who started playing football before age 12 scored worse on tests of short-term memory, problem-solving, and mental flexibility after their careers, CBS News reported. And another study showed that the risk of developing depression throughout one’s life is higher those who experienced concussion as a child or teen, HealthDay reported. There’s also evidence of additional dangers with repeated concussions: A study published in 2011 in the journal Neurosurgery showed that teens who experience two or more concussions have more mental fogginess, sleep problems, headaches and dizziness, and memory problems, than non-concussed peers.

While some people recover from a concussion quickly and fully, others may experience lasting effects. Not allowing for proper recovery after a concussion can lead to long-term health problems, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, there may be such thing as too much recovery time, recent research suggests — a study published earlier this year in the journal Pediatrics shows that 11-to-22-year-olds with concussion who rested for five days had longer-lasting concussive symptoms, compared with those just resting one to two days.  

Molly Shea contributed reporting.

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