Does Amateur Boxing Leads to Chronic Attentional Disorders?
Volume 6, Issue 4, Winter 2015, Pages 415-431
https://doi.org/10.22059/jmlm.2015.52767
Ali Akbar Jaberi Moghaddam, Ahmad Farokhi, Mostafa Khani
Abstract Boxing is one of the organized high-contact sports that requires purposeful
punches to the head and body of the opponent in both amateur and professional
levels, so traumatic head injury in boxers isn’t impossible. In this type of injury,
though intact cognitive functions, it is possible that total cognitive beneficiary
become impaired as a result of distractibility, imperfect concentration, and
aftermath fatigue. Thus, purpose of this study was to investigate attentional
disorders in amateur boxing. Subjects of the study were 30 male experienced
amateur boxers (more than 4 years background, age= 24±3.1) as experimental
group, and 30 male novice amateur boxers (less than 1 year background,
age=25±4.2) and 30 male 400 and 800 meter runners (age= 24±2.7) as control
groups. We used DAUF continuous attention test to assess attentional component.
In order to data analyzing was used MANOVA in the significance level of 0.05.
Findings showed that in none of variables there were significant difference
between groups (P>0.05), meaning that amateur boxing periods even longer than
4 years doesn't lead to attentional disorders. Based on our findings, it is concluded
that intensity of punches in amateur boxing doesn't reach to threshold that lead to
brain damage at least in regions which control visual attention.