Detecting Concussions on the Sidelines

Reported August 2005

ATLANTA (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- A big hit during a football game ... The impact of a car crash. Both can cause serious head injuries.

Emory School of Medicine emergency medicine physician David Wright, M.D., sees just about everything in the ER, but a concussion -- or any alteration in mental status after a blow to the head -- can be one of the most complicated to diagnose.

Right now, doctors diagnose a concussion with a pen and paper test that can take up to two hours. It's not practical on a football field where a coach has to decide in minutes whether to put a player back in.

"Oftentimes the player won't admit to having a concussion," Dr. Wright says. "They want to go back out and play." He has teamed up with biomedical engineer Michelle LaPlaca, Ph.D., of Georgia Tech, to create a device to assess the situation in five to seven minutes.

"We wanted to be able to administer a shortened neuropsychological test in an environment that is potentially noisy and has a lot of distractions and to minimize those distractions," Dr. LaPlaca tells Ivanhoe.

It's called DETECT and has three components: a laptop computer, headset and a handheld unit. It's used to test cognitive functions like reaction time and memory.

Dr. LaPlaca says, "It has to be a sensitive test, and that's what we're in the process of validating now."

It's currently being tested in Emory's emergency room and soon on the field.

"My hope is that it saves lives," Dr. Wright says -- saving lives on and off the playing field.

While most college and professional teams have skilled medical professionals on the sidelines, Dr. Wright says junior high and high school teams often don't. He says this and the emergency room are the two places he believes the detect device will benefit most.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Catherine Sebold
Brian Injury Association of America
McLean, VA
(703) 584-8621


Click here to watch the video.

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