Researchers at Cambridge University and the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center have designed a way to continuously tracking potentially dangerous changes in blood flow to the brain, which will increase the chances for preventing brain damage and death in children with head injuries.
Researchers are hoping to better understand what the optimal levels for damage prevention are in children. Although monitors are able to track blood pressure and blood flow to the brain, the Hopkins-Cambridge team created a system that for the first time will be able to precisely determine the “breakpoint” at which the brain begins to lose its ability to cope with changes in blood pressure. The software gauges minute shifts in blood pressure and oxygenation every 60 seconds and will alert doctors when they approach critical levels.
You can read more on the Hopkins-Cambridge research here.