American high school football is 47 percent of all reported sports concussions and 33% of those happen during sports practice. Ice hockey and soccer closely follow concussions in high school sports. Athletes can go to the hospital for an MRI or CT scan to determine if they've suffered a concussion, but it's difficult to detect a concussion in the moment.
There is dectection technology for concussions ranging from the King-Devick test, ImPACT test and BrainScope's EEG technology which all use single symptom diagnosis like eye movement, brain waves or a test-retest variance to determine concussion. Even with these tests, environmental conditions can have an impact on diagnosis. By example, if someone is tired or has a headache, the rapid movement of the eye between fixed points may be slowed down, but peripheral vision could be just fine. This makes it hard to detect mild concussions.
A new start up in Pennsylvania, Reflexion Interactive, has created a portable device to detect concussions on the spot. The prototype, Reflexion Edge, is designed to measure an athlete's neurocognitive and psychomotor status in about 30 seconds. This on-the-spot measurment is intended to give an up-to-the minute assessment of a player's ability to return to play or be sidelined to prevent further injury.
The prototype weighs around 20 pounds, fits into a duffle bag and can be easily assembled for portability. It has a large custom designed touchscreen with more than 2,500 sensors and a full color LED array that fills a user’s horizontal field of view. The athlete stands in front of the device and interacts with targets on the screen which records reaction times. The data is collected from correlated functions including complex and simple reaction time, peripheral awareness, depth perception, memory and psychomotor response.
The data is analyzed and compared to a trend of previously recorded user data points. The device then gives an analysis on whether or not it's safe for the athlete to return to play.
"The Reflexion Edge simultaneously tests many correlated functions to concussion at once. It reduces the effects of environmental factors from one test to the next and allows us to screen entire teams in a short period of time so that we can catch the concussions that the coaches and athletes don't already suspect," said Matthew Campagna, Co-founder, Reflexion Interactive Technologies. "Our system is designed to be administered after every game, regardless of the suspicion of a concussion. This way, even mild concussions that would otherwise go unnoticed may be caught."
The company is working with Dr. Semyon Slobounov, Professor of Kinseology, Pennsylvania State University and Dr. Venkatachalam Mangeshkumar, a neurologist practicing at both Ephrata Community Hospital and Heart of Lancaster Regional Medical Center in Pennslyvania.
Campagna says they are partnering with Pennsylvania State University and will begin phase one clinical trials with volunteers in Spring 2017.
The company was founded by three students from Case Western Reserve University, Pennsylvania State University and Cornell University and has raised $200k in angel funding, government and private grants. The protoype will be shown at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, January 5-8, 2017.
