Application
Traumatic Brain Injury has been labeled the “signature injury” of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. With an estimated 360,000 troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, as many as 22% had suffered traumatic brain injuries3. In the United States civilian population, there are approximately 1.5 million emergency department (ED) visits annually for traumatic brain injury (TBI)4. In addition, approximately 1.6 to 3.8 million sports-related traumatic brain injuries occur annually in the US5, But the majority of these are mild (mTBI) and not treated in a hospital ED.
When TBI occurs, the brain electrical activity significantly changes in brain regions suffering any of the consequences of the head injury. Brain injury also changes electrical activity of those regions whose inputs come from remote damaged regions where brain function has been altered or disrupted, as well as changes in the relationships between affected regions.
The device intended for military use is being developed with the following objectives:
- a tool to provide adjunctive brain electrical data to aid in assessment of brain injury;
- a tool to provide rapid and clinically meaningful, adjunctive front-line assessment of brain function to aid in timely triage decision-making;
- a tool to offer additional brain function information when both the neurologic exam and the imaging tests show a negative reading, but the patient has persistent or worsening symptoms.
BrainScope devices under development are not being developed with the intention of replacing a medical professional examining the patient, or to displace CT or MRI technologies, but will offer adjunctive information.
3 Army Brig. Gen. Loree Sutton provided the estimate during a news conference about March as Brain Injury Awareness Month. She heads the Pentagon’s Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury.
4 Jagoda AS, Bazarian JJ, Bruns JJ Jr, Cantrill SV, Gean AD, Howard PK, Ghajar J, Riggio S, Wright DW, Wears RL, Bakshy A, Burgess P, Wald MM, Whitson RR; American College of Emergency Physicians; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Clinical policy: neuroimaging and decision making in adult mild traumatic brain injury in the acute setting. Ann Emerg Med. 2008 Dec;52(6):714-48.
5 Langlois, J. ScD, MPH; Rutland-Brown, W. MPH; Wald, M. MLS, MPH; The Epidemiology and Impact of Traumatic Brain Injury: A Brief Overview; Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, Vol. 21, No. 5, pp. 375378 2006