A-37 Neuropsychological Functioning In Cognitively Normal And Impaired Aging NFL Retirees

Abstract Objective Identify differences in neuropsychological (NP) functioning between older (≥ 50) National Football League (NFL) retirees and age-matched controls, and examine whether differences correlate to head-injury exposure. Method NFL retirees were diagnosed with normal cognition (n = 20), mild cognitive impairment (n = 19), or dementia (n = 5) using Jak and Bondi (2009) criteria and clinical consensus. Retirees were age-matched to either healthy controls (n = 18) or clinical controls with MCI (n = 21) or dementia (n = 5). MANCOVAs and partial correlations covarying for age and education compared retiree’s NP performances to controls, and examined whether differences in NP measures were correlated with number of concussions, or games and years played in the NFL. Results Cognitively normal (CN) retirees displayed lower processing speed, naming, and verbal memory (p’s