US 2017/0304140 A1 · Reducing Brain Injury By Limiting Brain Motion During Sudden Deceleration Or Acceleration Of The Head

Abstract

A brain injury reduction system provides a protective measure that temporarily or decreases venous drainage out of the intracranial compartment during or immediately before and during a sudden change in acceleration of an individual's head. Specifically, a wearable helmet or other wearable structure of the brain injury reduction system detects an impending collision and determines whether a protective measure is needed. If so, one or more actuation devices provides the protective measure to reduce venous drainage through one or both of the internal jugular veins or paravertebral venous plexus. A first actuation device stimulates a gag reflex or valsalva-like maneuver to reduce venous drainage through the paravertebral venous plexus. A second actuation device can physically compress the internal jugular veins. Thus, the brain injury reduction system minimizes the detrimental impact that may occur due to the sudden change in acceleration of the individual's head.

Claims30

Dependent claims

A system for reducing a severity of a brain injury incurred by an individual due to a change in head acceleration of the individual, the system comprising:

one or more wearable housings configured to be worn on the body of the individual;
a wearable sensing device comprising:
one or more sensors on or within at least one of the housings, each of the one or more sensors positioned on the wearable sensing device to detect one of an occurring or impending collision that would result in the change in head acceleration;
a wearable actuation device comprising:
one or more stimulation structures on or within at least one of the housings, the stimulation structures each configured to cause one of a gag reflex or a valsalva-like maneuver,
communication electronics on or within at least one of the housings and configured to transmit an input from the wearable sensing device to the wearable actuation device, the input instructing the wearable actuation device to initiate actuation to cause the one of the gag reflex or the valsalva-like maneuver subsequent to detection of the occurring or impending collision by the one or more sensors of the wearable sensing device.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Reducing Brain Injury By Limiting Brain Motion During Sudden Deceleration Or Acceleration Of The Head

Life of this patent

Reducing Brain Injury By Limiting Brain Motion During Sudden Deceleration Or Acceleration Of The Head

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims30