Armed Forces News

Medical providers now can use a mobile-devise application to diagnose traumatic brain injury (TBI) quickly and accurately. The Defense Automated Neurobehavioral Assessment app can make such diagnoses in as little as five minutes, in almost any setting. Developed by the Maryland-based AnthroTronix Inc., a research company, the app entails clinicians to ask those who suffer serious head injuries to take part in a series of cognitive-efficiency tests and questionnaires. Clinicians can review results quickly and compare them to baseline measures of brain function. The app also should prove useful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, fatigue, dementia, concussions, and other disorders. The app’s use still has not been cleared for the battlefield. Once fully approved, it should make its way into the kits medical providers carry with them. The four armed services reported more than 27,000 cases of traumatic brain injury in 2013.