Navy BLAST Sensor Development Looking to Improve Data on TBIs | Military.com: Navy researchers are developing a system that could help determine the severity of a brain injury suffered by a warfighter following an explosion.
The wearable, sensor-based, three-part Blast Load Assessment Sense and Test -- or BLAST -- is sponsored by the Washington-based Office of Naval Research and involves its Naval Research Laboratory, the University of North Carolina, NASA and New Mexico-based research firm Applied Research Associates Inc.
Though invisible, traumatic brain injury or TBI has been called the signature wound to emerge from the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Pentagon and U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs have spent millions researching and developing tools to detect TBI and treat service members.
More than 357,000 have been diagnosed since 2000, according to the Defense Department's Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center. Of that total, 294,000 cases have been of the mild variety, better known as a concussion.
