Prevalence of mild cognitive impairment among former elite athletes without a history of sport-related concussions compared to the general older population: a protocol for a cross-sectional study with exploratory subgroup analyses
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Epidemiological evidence regarding the impact of elite athletic careers on cognitive trajectories remains contentious. Although consistent physical activity has been associated with long-term brain health, former elite athletes appear to represent a unique population. While past research has established a connection between sport-related concussions (SRCs) and later cognitive decline, less attention has been given to the cognitive function of former athletes who have not experienced SRCs. Therefore, well-structured cross-sectional studies accounting for established dementia risk factors are needed to compare mild cognitive impairment (MCI) prevalence between former elite athletes and the general population. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: This cross-sectional study will be conducted at Beijing Sport University (BSU) in Beijing, China. It is designed as a comparative study, aiming to recruit a sample of around 360 participants aged 65 and above. This sample will comprise 180 former elite athletes without a history of SRCs recruited via the BSU Retirement Welfare Office (the former athlete group), and 180 age-matched individuals from the communities in three districts in Beijing (the comparison group). Participants will complete a comprehensive questionnaire covering sociodemographic information, dementia-related risk factors, current physical activity levels and, for the former athlete group specifically, details of their athletic careers. MCI and instrumental activities of daily living will be assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Memtrax continuous recognition test and Lawton Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) scale. The primary objective is to determine whether former elite athletes without a history of SRCs have a lower MCI prevalence than the general population. The secondary objective is to assess if these former elite athletes have a reduced prevalence of amnestic MCI and impairment in IADL compared with the general population. Additionally, the study aims to explore whether specific career-related characteristics of former athletes, such as the type of sport and contact exposure, are correlated with their cognitive function and IADL abilities in later life as a secondary exploratory component. The study will calculate the crude prevalence ratios (PRs) and adjusted prevalence ratios (aPRs) with 95% CIs using the modified Poisson regression model with robust error variance. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee/Internal Review Board of BSU (approval number: 2024042H). All procedures will adhere to the Helsinki Declaration. The study's findings will be provided to participants as deemed appropriate. The outcomes will be communicated through abstract presentations at national or international conferences/academic seminars, as well as through publication in a peer-reviewed journal. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ChiCTR2400085800.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.017 | 0.013 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.008 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".