Military Healthcare Convention & Conference Advancing the Continuum of Care, San Antonio, Texas

 

June 2011

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Detection Noninvasive Physiological Screening for Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Case Reports.

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MC Mireles, PhD, MPH, Community Medical Foundation for Patient Safety, Bellaire, TX

 

Abstract:

To address the military’s concern about the prevalence, detection, diagnosis and treatment of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) among active personnel and veterans, a new noninvasive physiological screening method is proposed. Two case reports (head impact associated with a fall; sports-related head impact) demonstrate the possibility of measuring fine motor control (FMC) of the hands as a direct indicator of mTBI with two different test outputs based on functionality assessment and head impact trauma probability. Case 1 (male, 46 yo) captured deviation of FMC 40 minutes post head impact. Case 2 (male, 26 yo) showed temporal deviation of FMC after successive head impact at separate sporting events. In both cases, FMC returned to normal or baseline indicating full recovery. Sensitivity of head injury screening based on FMC measurement is 96% (50 cases including the 2 case reports). More data are needed to go beyond proof of principle.