The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center https://dvbic.dcoe.mil estimates that nearly 380,000 service members have sustained brain injuries since 2000. The Army Medical Research and Materiel Command https://www.usammda.army.mil has coordinated testing for two medical devices including “BrainScope One ®” and the “Infrascanner 2000 ™” to quickly and effectively assess the existence and relative severity of brain trauma before a patient reaches advanced hospital care.
The devices could augment the Military Acute Concussion Evaluation (MACE) process, for assessing the wounded that may have suffered a traumatic brain injury https://dvbic.dcoe.mil/material/mace-military-acute-concussion-evaluation-pocket-card.
Both devices are small, light-weight, non-invasive and designed to take less than ten minutes to use. Both devices are already cleared by FDA, but FDA approval does not automatically mean a device or product is suited to address both the military operation need and the military operational environment.
Many hospitals have specialists such as neurologists, available to examine and diagnose patients but these experts are not always readily available at the point-of-injury to assess a wounded warfighter and determine the need for medical evacuation.
Both devices function differently to detect brain trauma. The “Infrascanner 2000” is a handheld device that uses near infrared spectroscopy to detect superficial bleeding in the brain. While the “BrainScope One” device analyzes the electrical activity of the brain to identify brain injury. However neither device is approved to replace an actual computed tomography scan of the head, but both devices could be used to support a clinical evaluation of a traumatic closed-head injury.
These two devices are not the only potential brain jury tools in development by the Army. The Army Medical Research and Materiel Command is currently studying brain injury detection and diagnosis efforts by focusing on wearable sensors with detection algorithms.
The Army is also studying how handheld laboratory tests using blood sample biomarkers will work, and studying devices that measure and monitor physiological parameters relevant to moderate and severe brain injuries.