Introduction: The CogScreen-Aeromedical Edition (CogScreen-AE) is a computerized neurocognitive assessment screening tool developed for the Federal Aviation Administration as a rapid, reliable means of measuring neurocognitive deficiency in civilian airline pilots. This has potential use and assessment of military aviators flying high performance aircraft under extreme conditions; however, no data exist on how the dynamic flight environment affects CogScreen-AE scores. The objectives of this study were to determine what changes in performance on CogScreen-AE scores are seen post-flight in Naval Aviators flying high performance aircraft and to determine the potential for use of CogScreen-AE as a screening tool to evaluate degree of impairment, recovery from neurological illness, and return to duty status of a military aviator.
Materials and methods: Repeated measures, within-subjects experimental design with three CogScreen-AE administrations-introduction session, preflight session, and postflight session. An experimental study group was exposed to dynamic flight between preflight and postflight sessions, while a control group flew a desktop computer flight simulator between sessions. Data were analyzed by mixed model ANOVA using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences to compare CogScreen-AE pre- and postflight performance on 5 composite scores of variables that account for 45% of the variance in predicting flight performance.
Results: Preflight versus postflight scores demonstrated no significant differences in performance attributable to flight in high performance aircraft.
Conclusions: The CogScreen-AE performance is shown to be consistent preflight to post-flight. These data show that CogScreen-AE may be a reliable clinical instrument for assessing aviators' cognitive function with regard to return to flight duty decision-making. We anticipate future work in determining how CogScreen-AE can be utilized in the operational environment and documenting recovery from neurologic illness.
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States 2021. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.