Mouthguard for analysis of biomarkers for traumatic brain injury
AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation
InventorsJames R. Kozloski, Mark C. H. Lamorey, Clifford A. Pickover, John J. Rice
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Embodiments include methods, systems and computer program products for monitoring a user of a helmet for traumatic brain injury. Aspects include obtaining a saliva specimen from a mouthguard and providing the saliva specimen to a lab on chip. Aspects further include determining whether the saliva specimen contains a biomarker that indicates the user suffered a traumatic brain injury and creating an alert that the user of the helmet has suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Claims12
A computer program product for monitoring a user for traumatic brain injuries, the computer program product comprising:
- a non-transitory storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method comprising:
- determining that the user has suffered a severe impact;
- instructing a sensor to obtain a saliva specimen from a mouthguard and to provide the saliva specimen to a lab on chip, wherein obtaining the saliva specimen from the mouthguard is performed after a delay period from the severe impact, wherein the delay is determined based on a severity of the severe impact experienced by the user;
- analyzing the saliva specimen for one or more biomarkers;
- and
- creating an alert that the user of the mouthguard may have suffered a traumatic brain injury, wherein the alert includes an indication of the one or more biomarkers, a concentration of the one or more biomarkers and an identification of the user.
A system for monitoring a user for traumatic brain injuries comprising:
- a lab on chip configured to receive a saliva specimen from a mouthguard and to analyze the saliva specimen to identify one or more biomarkers;
- a processor configured to communicate with the lab on chip, wherein the processor creates an alert that the user of the mouthguard may have suffered a traumatic brain injury,
- wherein the processor instructs the lab on chip to obtain the saliva specimen from the mouthguard in response to a determination that the user has experienced an acceleration above a threshold amount, wherein the saliva specimen is obtained after a delay period from the acceleration above the threshold amount, wherein the delay is determined based on a severity of the acceleration above the threshold amount experienced by the user, and
- wherein the alert includes an indication of the one or more biomarkers, a concentration of the one or more biomarkers and an identification of the user.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.