Now, a smartphone app that can diagnose concussions
Scientists are developing a new smartphone application which they say could determine whether or not someone has suffered a concussion, a brain injury that may result in a serious headache.
The app, which currently has no name as it is still being tested, has potentially life-saving benefits particularly for young children and sportsmen, the researchers said.
According to its developers, the app works by asking a series of questions and then determines the likelihood of a concussion based on the user's answers.
Once confirmed that the head-trauma has taken place, an email will automatically be sent to the patient's doctor, the Daily Mail reported.
The application is the brainchild of Dr Jason Mihalik, of University of North Carolina's brain injury research centre and Dr Justin Smith of the US Children's National Medical Center.
Speaking at an event of the National Sports Concussion Cooperative in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the scientists hailed it as the first observer-based concussion app.
According to them, the basis for its question flow comes from materials provided by the Center For Disease Control. Its use is just one way to speed the response to possible concussions.
The core aim behind the project is how to most effectively bridge the communication gap between team doctors and the team athletic trainers, who are often the first to act when players suffer concussion-like symptoms.
Bill Griffin of the National Athletic Trainers Association said: "The documentation of immediate symptoms is very important, from, 'How did they get hurt?' to the mechanism of injury through those initial signs and symptoms, to 'How did they progress over time?'
"It's not only what happens at the time of the injury, but how things change."
The cooperative consists of coaches, doctors, equipment manufacturers and parents, and the group was formed in March to study concussions and brain trauma injuries in an attempt to make sports safer.
