HONG KONG: A new eye-tracking method might help determine the severity of concussions, researchers report.
According to WebMD, this is new approach is very simple, which makes it great for emergency rooms and, maybe one day, the sidelines of sporting events. As of right now, concussions are tricky because they lack an objective diagnostic tool. This new type of methodology could change that by allowing a way to better diagnose and decide how severe a concussion is. It could also lead to a quicker diagnosis of concussion, and would also help properly project time of recovery.
Data shows that around 90 percent of concussion patients have eye movement problems. However, the only real method used right now to test such injuries, is for doctor’s to have a patient to follow their finger. This new method is more effective that this model, and was first tested to assess eye movement in U.S. military personnel believed to have a concussion or other type of brain injuries. To conduct their study, the researchers gathered 75 trauma injury patients and 64 healthy patients. They then tracked the patients eye movements while the patients watched several minutes of a music video.
Those in the control group, and those who hadn’t hit their heads, had a much easier time controlling their eye movements than the 39 trauma patients who had normal CT scans, and 13 trauma patients who had suffered brain damage due to a head injury. The more severe the concussion, the worse the patients eye movement problems were. This test is important as it establishes a firm a biological marker for detecting concussion, something that has not previous existed.
