Ultrasound: The game changer

Concussion

    From non-league football to professional rugby...concussion is something which a catalogue of sports has to deal with. In fact, American football is the sport which involves the most individuals suffering from concussion with, a staggering, 20% of high school players (in America) who experience concussion. This week, Universal Medicine will be exploring the topic of concussion along with symptoms and an exciting prospect which allows concussion to be identified from the side lines.

    Concussion is described as a "Mild" traumatic brain injury, here the brain bounces or twists in the skull as a result of a collision of sort. Although it is described as a "Mild" injury, concussion does have negative impacts on the individuals as well as possible long term effects. Firstly, it is important to understand that long term effects of concussion are very rare and can pass over time. A long term effect of concussion is the difficulty in making decisions as well as struggling to process a bulk of information but as previously stated the long term impacts from concussion is not a regular occurrence. Moreover, a lot of research has been conducted around this injury, research suggests that if someone has previously suffered from concussion then they are twice as more likely to experience concussion again. In addition, if someone has endured concussion twice then they are 2-4 times more likely to receive a third. Another study indicates that females are more liekly to experience concussion than males as well as experiencing more symptoms and having to wait longer to recover.


    Concussion Anatomy
    Symptoms of concussion:

        Concussion Anatomy
        Loss of consciousness
        Headache
        Nausea
        Confusion
        Balance issues
        Vomiting


    The game changer 

    Cue the TCD headset. The TCD headset is a very exciting medical prospect which allows the detection of concussion. TCD is an ultrasound technique which can measure the brain's blood flow. Ultrasound is already used in medical imaging as well as removing kidney stones. This headset which is bursting with potential was tested on 235 athletes, 66 of these athletes had recently suffered from concussion. Over 6 days the group of researchers measured blow flow. Furthermore, the researchers found that the TCD device easily distinguished between healthy and concussed athletes with 83% accuracy whilst conventional methods distinguished with accuracies between 53%-60% suggesting that the new TCD device was very much capable. This could be great help to the medical staff for sports teams as they are able to determine a player requires treatment.


    So, will TCD be a massive hit? Please feel free to comment if you think the TCD Ultrasound method will be a game changer, until then have a great week.

    Written by Adil Rahman

     Information souces:
    http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/309033.php
    http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/256518.php
    http://www.concussiontreatment.com/concussionfacts.html





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