Given the subjective nature of the currently available assessments, many of these concussions are either misdiagnosed or missed altogether. Additionally, athletes who have suffered a concussion are often given a go-ahead to return to play before their brains have fully healed, leading to a significantly higher risk of further concussions and increased severity of long-term symptoms.
Recent studies show that the easing, or even the disappearance, of the physical/behavioral symptoms associated with a concussion does not necessarily mean that the athlete has fully recovered. Analyses of the brain activity show that the healing of the brain occurs over a longer timescale. Current methods of concussion assessment, which largely focus on behavioural symptoms, do not probe the state of the brain.
EEGlewave Inc. aims to solve this problem. We first use electroencephalography (EEG), a well-established, non-invasive method for monitoring brain activity, to record electrical patterns from the different regions of the athlete's brain. We then use our proprietary methodology to quantify features present in the brain activity data to characterize the state of the athlete's brain, and provide coaches, sideline medical staff and physicians with a quantitative, objectively determined, likelihood measure of whether the athlete is concussed or not (with >90% accuracy), from a brain perspective. We do not require baseline testing to compute this measure.
Our goal is to enhance the health and well-being of concussed athletes. The combination of quantitative EEGlewave measures and the traditional behavioural symptom tests will enable physicians to make much more reliable concussion diagnoses that take into account the "brain health" of the athletes, thereby mitigating the risk of further concussions and potentially debilitating long-term outcomes.
