PITTSBURGH, Nov. 18, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Neuro Kinetics, Inc.
(NKI) (www.neuro-kinetics.com),
manufacturers of noninvasive medical diagnostic equipment used
worldwide to test for vestibular and neurological conditions, said
today that it has received a two-part grant under the recently
enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to further the
company’s ongoing clinical studies to collect data for the
objective diagnosis of sports concussions.
The Therapeutic Discovery grant was awarded by the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, an estimated
three million sports-related concussions occur annually in the
United States. For young people ages 15 to 24, sports are
second only to automobile accidents as the leading cause of
Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) and mild Traumatic Brain Injuries
(mTBI).
“With much attention focused recently on brain injuries in
professional and high school football, there is widespread
awareness of just how devastating brain injuries can be over time.
Our I-Portal® eye-tracking technology is proving to provide
repeatable and objective diagnosis of brain injuries inflicting all
athletes in contact sports, from school through professional
ranks,” said Howison Schroeder, NKI president and CEO. “As with so
many medical issues, accurate and timely diagnosis means better
patient care, and that can be a life-changer for a brain injury
victim.”
NKI is working with a major hospital to expand a database of
baseline brain functioning for student athletes in Western
Pennsylvania.
“We have already been able to compare a dozen concussion
incidents with the baseline data,” Schroeder. “We are encouraged
that our technology appears to offer an early indication of whether
there is brain injury.”
The HHS grant will be used to further that research, Schroeder
said.
NKI’s research into
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