Assessment and Diagnosis of Vestibular Indicators of Soldiers Operational Readiness - Tethered Forward Deployable (ADVISOR-TFD)
Abstract
Mild traumatic brain injury, also known as concussion, is one of the most common injuries on the modern battlefield. Concussions are difficult to diagnose since every concussion patient may show slightly different symptoms. However, some of the most common symptoms are associated with maintaining balance and controlling eye movements. The ability to objectively detect alterations in eye movements and balance control may help to identify patients with concussions. Charles River Analytics has developed a system called ADVISOR-TFD (Assessment and Diagnosis of Vestibular Indicators of Soldiers’ Operational Readiness – Tethered Forward Deployable) that uses specialized equipment and software to assess altered eye movements and balance control associated with concussion in military medical settings that are far-forward or close to the front lines of combat. By objectively evaluating concussion symptoms, military medical personnel will be able to accurately diagnose Soldiers sooner after injury. This will help prevent further injury to Soldiers by detecting concussions that might otherwise go unnoticed. Conversely, an early and accurate concussion diagnosis will reduce unnecessary Warfighter evacuations, allowing them to continue to perform their missions. Earlier diagnosis will allow medical personnel to treat Soldiers with concussions more effectively and triage wounded more accurately. Under this award, we will advance ADVISOR-TFD to be a fully ruggedized system, capable of accompanying military medical personnel to far-forward locations. To do this, we will determine the precise specifications required to meet rigorous military ruggedization standards. We will advance ADVISOR-TFD’s design to be portable, reduce weight, resist environmental factors like dust and rain, and have a powerful battery to sustain its use for long durations. We will also test the system’s ruggedness to prove feasibility in far-forward use settings. To accompany Soldiers to the front lines, ADVISOR-TFD will need to run on a very small but powerful computer. A major task under this award will be to convert our existing software, which runs on Windows computers, to a new Linux-based operating system on the new computer. We will also convert the computer code that runs the concussion assessments and processes the data collected by the system to run properly on the new computer and optimize the software to perform quickly, accurately, and reliably. In addition, we will update the system to communicate with a ruggedized tablet so that military medical personnel can control ADVISOR-TFD easily. To control ADVISOR-TFD, we have created a special application, allowing medical personnel to select the tests that they want to perform, administer the tests to the patient, and view results. We will refine the application to work well within the military medical infrastructure, giving medics the information that they need while removing extra information that they do not. To do this, we will collaborate with experts in combat medicine who will help us to identify the appropriate design solutions to enhance the system’s ease of use. Next, we will perform usability testing with medical personnel and first responders at locations like Fort Bragg, NC, and UMass Memorial Medical School, with whom we have worked in the past. During realistic training scenarios, we will ask medical personnel to use the system to test an actor who will play the part of a possible concussion patient. We will collect data on medics’ performance, identify risks and design concerns, determine inconsistencies and usability problem areas, and determine user-satisfaction levels. This will help us further refine the system and confirm that ADVISOR-TFD will function well in real-world use. Finally, we will compare the performance of ADVISOR-TFD with similar systems that are also designed to sense changes in eye movements and balance to detect concussions. This will help us
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Dec 28, 2022
- Source ID
- W81XWH2211104
Entities
People
- Phillip Desrochers
Organizations
- Charles River Analytics (United States)
- United States Army