Brain injuries are invasive injuries that can be devastating. Unfortunately, diagnosing brain injuries can be difficult. It can also be challenging to track the improvements that patients are making when they undergo treatment for brain injury.
Knowing the extent of the damage when a person suffers a blow to the brain is necessary for proper treatment. Injured victims also need to know how badly they are hurt so they can pursue a claim for compensation with the help of their Atlanta brain injury lawyer.
Fortunately, new research shows that eye-tracking may have promise in helping medical professionals diagnose and monitor traumatic brain injury (TBI). Forbes reports on the research, which was published this December in the Journal of Neurosurgery.
Eye-Tracking Could Help Diagnose Atlanta Brain Injury Victims
Researchers at New York University’s Langone Medical Center developed new technologies that they believe will be able to help detect when a brain injury has occurred and where in the brain the injury is concentrated.
The technology was tested as part of a study involving 169 patients. A total of 157 of the patients were “neurologically normal.” Twelve demonstrated “specific abnormalities in cranial nerves controlling eye movement or brain swelling close to the nerves.” The damage to the brains of the patient involved nerves that affected the ability of the eye to move sideways, up and down.
Researchers had the 169 patients participating in the survey watch either television content or music video. The participants watched for 220 seconds and at the same time as they were watching the content, the researchers are measuring the ratio of horizontal to vertical eye movement.
In patients who are neurologically normal with no damage to the brain, the eyes moved vertically and horizontally at almost a one-to-one ratio. In other words, their eyes moved side-to-side and up-and-down close to equal number of times.
For the 12 participants in the study who had nerve damage to the brain, however, their eye movements had a different ratio. The aberrant eye movement ratios varied depending upon which of the nerves in the brain had suffered the damage. When patients with brain abnormalities had surgery to correct the problems that they were having, their eye movement returned back to the normal range.
This experiment clearly showed that the eye-tracking technology has the potential to help doctors identify the location and extent of injury to the brain and to monitor how well the brain is improving. Not only can this improve treatment, but it can also open the door to more clinical trials. Clinical trials have been limited in the past because brain injury is hard to classify and quantitate.
Hopefully, this new advancement can help to improve the treatment that brain injury sufferers receive. Many brain injuries are caused by negligence, like dangerous drivers or unsafe conditions leading to slip-and-falls. Victims of these injuries deserve the very best in medical care so they have a chance of getting better.
Have You Been The Victim Of Medical Malpractice?
If you or a loved one has been injured due to a medical error you need to speak with a medical malpractice attorney as soon as possible. Please contact us online or call our office directly at (800) 234-9556 to schedule your free consultation.