Objectives To describe the cognitive functioning of retired professional rugby league players.

Design Descriptive cohort study.

Setting University research center.

Participants 144 former Australian professional rugby league players (age: M=52.6, SD=13.8, range 30–89).

Outcome Measures Participants completed a battery of neuropsychological tests [e.g., Trails A/B, Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Task (RAVLT), Rey Complex Figure Task (RCFT), Stroop, verbal fluency, and subtests from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) to measure working memory and processing speed] from which 12 scores were selected. Scores were adjusted for age and compared to the normative T-score distribution (M=50, SD=10) to generate Cohen’s d effect sizes. Further, participants were classified as meeting research criteria for mild cognitive impairment (MCI) if they had at least 4 low cognitive scores, stratified by their estimated level of intellectual functioning.

Main Results As a group, retired players functioned similarly to the normative group on tests of processing speed, working memory, and verbal fluency (ds=-0.20–0.15). Retired players performed modestly better than the normative group on Trails A (d=0.36), Trails B (d=0.37), and Stroop inhibition (d=0.33), and worse on measures of learning and memory (e.g., RAVLT Learning, d=-1.00; RCFT Delayed Recall d=-0.74). Eighteen retired players (12.6%) met research criteria for MCI.

Conclusions Retired professional rugby league players appeared to do better than expected on tests of executive functioning and worse than expected on tests of learning and memory. Approximately one-in-eight retired players had multiple low scores, meeting our research criteria for MCI. Understanding the etiology of these low cognitive scores from a biopsychosocial perspective will be important in the assessment and treatment of these former athletes.