Presenter
Lauren Powers
Document Type
Poster
Publication Date
2025
Abstract
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) are injuries to the brain caused by an outside force from car accidents, falls, and strikes to the head. TBI’s make up 30% of injury related deaths in the US. The market for screening TBI’s was deemed profitable, thus research and development (R&D) was done to create a field-based device. This device targets the demographic of patients with less access to important TBI care, like DIII and high school athletes. It also targets the demographic of people injured in motor vehicle accidents. This inexpensive field-based device is designed to tell a first responder or athletic trainer, “more likely than not,” if the person injured has a concussion. The TBI screening prototype does this by testing the patients’ reaction time. This paddle-shaped device has an array of touch sensing buttons that light up in a specific pattern. The patient will follow that pattern, touching the buttons as fast as possible, and the device records the total time it took to finish. By comparing this time against the time from the same test that the patient took prior to the injury, or by comparing it to a national average, it can be seen “more likely than not” if someone has a concussion. This testing method is inspired by the MAT project which was created and is currently being improved by other students in the research class. This device is inspired by online, computer-based concussion tests such as ImPACT.
Faculty Mentor
Nicole Urban, Ph.D.
Academic Discipline
College of Engineering & Design; College of Arts & Sciences
Repository Citation
Powers, Lauren; Davy, Samantha; and Truppi, Jianna, "Field-Based Device to Test Possible Concussions" (2025). Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium. 207.
https://scholarsarchive.jwu.edu/innov_symposium/207
