Major Brain Injury
Currently, there is a critical unmet medical need to quickly and accurately assess whether the brain is functioning normally in individuals who have a major brain injury. Although the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) is widely used, this outdated behavioural tool is incorrect in diagnosing 43% of patients. This use of behavioural assessment tools contradicts logic: brain and behaviour are tightly linked so as soon as the brain incurs an injury, the very thing that is being measured is inadvertently compromised. Unfortunately, many patients have the cognitive reserve to regain consciousness/life skills but are left untreated because of inaccurate assessment.
Mindful Scientific recognized this flaw and developed a solution, the Halifax Consciousness Scanner (HCS), to bypass this problem by measuring neural responses instead of relying on behavioural responses. By providing an accurate and objective assessment of conscious awareness, the HCS has potential implications in both diagnosis and management of brain injury:
- Initial diagnosis of consciousness is important for clinical decisions and treatment
- Rehabilitation is expensive and subjective
