Last Wednesday, October 6th, Bruno Tassignon has successfully defended his PhD Thesis. Functional performance tests and return-to-sport decision-making: Focusing on translational research with special interest in fatigue and the brain. Another successful collaboration between our group and the MFYS Laboratory of Prof. Romain Meeussen. Although the defence has already taken place, we do like to share the content of Bruno’s thesis as it holds some key practical implications.

Balance tests are commonly used in clinical practice with applicability in injury prevention and return to sport decisions. While most sports injuries occur in a changing environment where reacting to a non-planned stimulus is of great importance, these balance tests only evaluate pre-planned movements without taking these dynamics environmental aspects into account. Therefore, the goal of this paper was to describe the development of a clinician-friendly test that respects these contextual interactions and to describe the test protocol of an adapted Y-balance test that includes environmental perception and decision-making.