As recent research has been focused on identifying concussions as they occur in sports like football and during combat overseas, a research team hopes to employ a new test based on eye movements to bring even greater accuracy to concussion diagnosis.
A new testing system called the I-Portal, developed by Allegheny Health Network and corporate partner Neuro Kinetics Inc., incorporates high-speed digital photography and other technology to analyze a patient’s ability to visually track dots of light or other visual stimuli, which are projected against either a light or dark background.
New Test may be more effective than Existing Visual-Based Concussion Detection Tests
In an initial study of high school football players, those with experienced concussions had more difficulty tracking the images in comparison to a control group without any type of traumatic brain injury. Results of the study hope to be among the promising developments in orthopedic medicine to be highlighted in late April on the website of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. With the Allegheny Health Network’s involvement, O’Hara-based Neuro Kinetics is now focusing its efforts on a potential military application with trials set to begin at Naval Medical Center San Diego and Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington.
A growing body of concern over the long-term effects of concussions has spawned a wave of new research — including other studies at Allegheny Health and at the University of Pittsburgh and its medical center — on how to more quickly and definitively detect concussions.
Unlike broken bones and other injuries that can be detected through X-rays, scans, or imaging, concussions are not readily observable. While doctors, coaches, and medical professionals have balance and cognition tests to probe for possible concussions, true diagnosis still relies partly on the self-reporting of athletes who may just want to return to the game.
J. Howison Schroeder, Neuro Kinetics president and CEO, said he hopes I-Portal, Neuro Kinetics’ device, is more clinically precise and more effective than methods now used to detect concussions, including the well-established King-Devick Test. The King-Devick Test is 2-minute eye-movement test that measures the speed and accuracy with which a person reads a sequence of numbers. Similar eye-movement tests also are used to assess people for multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, dyslexia and other disorders.
I-Portal could serve as One of Many Tools used to Confirm Concussions
Concussions are also a major concern for the military, whose soldiers are susceptible to head injury in combat. The danger exists in all sports at the scholastic, college and professional levels, evidenced by the ever expanding, pending litigation involving several lawsuits between ex-NFL players and the league as well as ex-college athletes and the NCAA.
In the I-Portal trial, researchers administered the eye-tracking test to 292 high school football players with no history of concussions. Ten of those test subjects later sustained head injuries that were diagnosed under the standard methods. When they were given the eye-tracking test a second time, the 10 performed at a significantly lower level than they or their peers had previously.
Steven Broglio, director of the University of Michigan’s NeuroSport Research Laboratory and lead author of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association policy on concussions, said I-Portal is less likely to be the magic bullet for diagnosing concussions, but another valuable tool health professionals will have available to them to help substantiate concussion assessments. To increase the accuracy of concussion detection, he said, many experienced professionals administer multiple tests on a patient.
In addition to the I-Portal research, Allegheny Health Network is helping to evaluate another test, developed by a Cleveland Clinic Innovations spinoff, that incorporates a patient’s vision, balance and motor function into concussion detection.
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