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A mobile app will soon be developed to diagnose concussion in children
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Experts representing the University of Washington are working on a unique mobile app that will help detect concussions and other head injuries in children.
Most children, having learned to walk or even crawl, often fall and receive various degrees of injury. Sometimes the severity of the injury can be determined by characteristic signs. For example, if the child is dizzy and has a headache, he feels sick, vomits, if the baby loses consciousness at the moment of falling - then we can confidently state a concussion.
Parents of very young children are not always able to assess the severity of the child's injury, because the child will not be able to explain how he fell and what is bothering him. In such a situation, a consultation with specialized pediatric specialists will be required: a neurologist and a traumatologist. If the doctor deems it necessary, he will prescribe additional diagnostic procedures - for example, X-ray or neurosonography.
Difficulty in diagnosis also exists in school-age children. It is no secret that schoolchildren run and jump not only during physical education classes, but also during breaks and after school. Parents are unlikely to be able to control their behavior. A schoolchild can get a head injury almost anywhere - and he will not always tell adults about this injury. Most often, the child hits himself, gets up and goes on.
To protect parents from unnecessary worries and simplify diagnostics, specialists decided to create a mobile application PupilScreen, capable of identifying violations in a child's reaction to a light stimulus. The application uses a video camera built into a smartphone and an in-depth monitoring program that works similarly to artificial intelligence and detects changes that are inaccessible to the normal human eye.
Extensive clinical testing for the app will begin this fall. The program will be given to sports coaches, emergency room doctors, and teachers for evaluation. Scientists are trying to gather as much information as possible about the app’s capabilities, as well as about the changes that may accompany atypical cases of brain injury.
Experts suggest that mass access to the PupilScreen application will be opened within the next two years.
Concussion is the most common diagnosis made by pediatric traumatologists. The increased level of trauma is due to the high motor activity of children, their restlessness and curiosity. All these qualities are present in a child along with insufficient motor skills, imperfect motor coordination, and overestimation of their capabilities. At the same time, the greatest number of injuries are received by school-age children - this is more than 45%.
Schoolchildren tend to hide injuries for various reasons, so creating a widely accessible diagnostic application is very relevant. Experts are already predicting the particular popularity and demand for this program.
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