|
 The new technology is essentially like a doctor moving a finger in
front of a person’s eyes after a hit to the head - except now it's
automated, said Dr. Uzma Samadani of NYU Langone Medical Center in
New York City.
And the results are reproducible, whereas with the follow-my-finger
method, Samadani said, “Each doctor is going to have variability in
how well they’re going to be able to assess how well a person is
getting better.”
Samadani said she developed the new technology because she needed a
reliable way to assess concussions. Accurate diagnoses would improve
patients' care, allowing for more accurate assessments of when they
could safely return to work or play after a hit to the head, she
said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines a concussion
as a type of brain injury "caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the
head that can change the way your brain normally works."
In her team's study, 75 people who'd been in accidents (but not
necessarily head accidents) plus 64 healthy volunteers all watched a
four-minute video while their eye movement was tracked by a
computer. The computer could tell when their eyes are moving in
opposite directions. So-called disconjugated eye movement has been
tied to brain injuries for centuries.
People with hits to the head had less ability to control their eye
movements, compared to people who had no known injuries, the
researchers wrote in the Journal of Neurotrauma.
The computer also detected signs of concussion in some patients
without any noticeable brain injury on a CT scan.
Images, like those from a CT scan, "tell you what (the brain) looks
like – not how it functions,” Samadani said.
[to top of second column] |
The researchers also found that the severity of symptoms from
concussion was tied to the severity of their eye movement problems.
The technology is currently only available in research settings, but
Samadani hopes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will clear it
for use by the end of this year.
“I think we’re going to change how we diagnose and define brain
injury and concussion,” she said.
Future research needs to focus on other factors that may influence
the results of the test, such as alcohol, morphine and sleep
deprivation.
“What we’re finding so far is that these things affect eye movement,
but in different ways than brain injury does,” Samadani said. “So
we’re hoping to tease out the differences.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1CI4Cyx The Journal of Neurotrauma, online
January 29, 2015.
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
