Brain trauma encompasses both traumatic brain injury and trauma associated with brain tumors, stroke, seizures, and infections. Initial brain trauma may result in loss of consciousness followed by a prolonged period of recovery with lingering cognitive, emotional, social, and motor impairments.
Current methods for assessing the effectiveness of therapies rely primarily on using subjective criteria which may contain errors. There is a need for tools that can provide valuable real-time quantitative feedback on small incremental improvements.
Rutgers University www.rutgers.edu scientists have been working on a novel method to diagnose and monitor brain trauma patients. They have developed a new analytical method for correlating physiological states to motor function using a sensitive method for finding small but reliable and systematic changes in signals. These signals are derived from biometric data supplied from commercially available portable sensors that can be worn by patients during recovery and therapy at the hospital or at home.
The technology separates the spontaneous random micro-motions from the systematic predictable ones. This method was successfully used to monitor physiological and motor signals associated with improvements and progressive recovery from a coma of a pregnant woman with brain trauma. It even captured and recorded her labor contractions, as the patient later delivered a child by C-section.
This use of the sensors can be used in combination with currently available sensors or as part of an integrated wearable sensor unit. This technology can also detect brain trauma in individuals involved in high-risk activities such as high impact sports and be used to help in TBI rehabilitation.
The patent is pending on the technology (RU Tech ID #2015-048) available for licensing and/or research collaborations. For more information email Yong Zhang PhD at young.zhang@rutgers.edu or go to the Rutgers Office of Research Commercialization https://orc.rutgers.edu .