Electronic device tests brain function in coma patients

But now, neuroscientists and engineers at the Canadian National Research Council (NRC) have developed what they are calling the Halifax consciousness scanner (HCS) − an electronic device that will ultimately pack an (EEG) and highly specialised testing software into a product the size of a smart phone.

According to the researchers, an untrained person will be able to use the device to reliably perform a complex battery of neurological tests on a patient in less than five minutes.

For 30 years, doctors have inferred brain function from patients’ physical reactions, based on a checklist called the Glasgow coma scale (GCS). This checklist is useful because a clinician can administer it anywhere and it assigns an easily understood score to a patient’s condition. But its accuracy depends on a doctor’s expertise and upon patients being able to respond physically.

Nearly half the time, the GCS fails to detect the awareness of deep coma patients who are not vegetative, but who cannot respond in any way. Yet treatment choices − and patients’ odds of recovery − rely on that critical diagnosis.