April 28, 2017 – Finding Brain Bleeds

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Anchor lead: A new device helps screen people with head injuries for bleeding in the brain, Elizabeth Tracey reports

Brain bleeds after a head injury may now be more quickly identified with use of a hand held device tested at Johns Hopkins and several other centers. Called AHEAD 300, the device uses EEG type measurements and an algorithm to predict bleeding. Dan Hanley, lead investigator at Hopkins, says there may be other applications.

Hanley: Not only does this device find brain bleeding it also appears to have much potential in identifying who’s had a concussion, with substantial symptoms, with only mild symptoms, or in someone who’s had an event, that, to witnesses could be a concussion but that their EEG is completely normal, that in this group correlated with absence of symptoms of concussion. :24

Hanley says AHEAD 300 could be used for evaluation in places where no CT or other sophisticated imaging is available, with results used to determine if a patient should be transported. It may also have a role in reducing unnecessary CT scans for head injury, which are expensive and involve radiation. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.