Feasibility and Tolerability of Useful Field of View Assessment in Youth with Concussion

Research Objectives: To investigate the feasibility and tolerability of the Useful Field of View (UFOV) assessment, a computerized adaptive measure, in youth with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI).

Design: Retrospective chart review.

Setting: Interdisciplinary pediatric concussion clinic.

Participants: Eight symptomatic patients with mTBI (M age=15.16, SD=2.67) were administered the UFOV assessment during their initial clinic visit.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: Total UFOV administration time and report of symptoms prior to and following UFOV administration.

Results: All patients were able to understand and complete the UFOV assessment in less than 15 minutes (M=8.51, SD=2.35). The evaluation was well-tolerated (no patient experienced symptom exacerbation greater than 2 points on a scale from 0 to 10). Although all participants performed within normal limits on UFOV using manual cutoffs, three participants (all with prior mTBIs) performed below expectations relative to peers using published pre-commercialization normative data. On the divided attention subtest (Subtest 2), those with prior history of mTBI (n=3; M=64.33, SD=5.13) performed significantly worse than those without such history (n=5; M=32.97, SD=4.94), (t (6) = 8.58, p< .001).

Conclusions: The UFOV assessment has been well-studied in older adults and is predictive of driving performance in young adults and those with moderate to severe TBI. Useful field of view can be trained in older adults which may have implications for younger populations and those with acquired brain injury. Data suggest that UFOV assessment is both feasible and well-tolerated among youth with mTBI presenting to an interdisciplinary concussion clinic. Future research should seek to better understand the relationship between UFOV performance and risk of and recovery from mTBI in youth.

Author(s) Disclosures: The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.