{"id":173966,"date":"2025-09-22T12:46:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T12:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/173966\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T12:46:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T12:46:13","slug":"taking-the-guesswork-out-of-concussion-assessments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/173966\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking the guesswork out of concussion assessments"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brian Consiglio<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>The Mizzou Point-of-Care Assessment System is a portable tool that can assess an individual\u2019s movement, balance and reaction times to spot a possible concussion.<\/p>\n

Sept. 22, 2025
Contact: Brian Consiglio, consigliob@missouri.edu<\/a>
Photos by Sophia Scheller<\/p>\n

Spotting a concussion can be tricky. After a potential head injury, you can ask if the person feels dizzy or has a headache \u2014 but that relies on self-reporting, which isn\u2019t always accurate.<\/p>\n

What if there were a way to take the guesswork out of it?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the problem Trent Guess, an associate professor at the University of Missouri College of Health Sciences<\/a>, and Jacob Thomas, a Mizzou doctoral student, have set out to solve. They\u2019ve developed a portable system that uses machine learning to track body motion and detect possible signs of a concussion \u2014 offering a more objective way to identify injuries in real time. While most concussion-testing machines are expensive and only available in specialized labs, the Mizzou Point-of-Care Assessment System is affordable and portable, making it more accessible to the general public in a variety of settings.<\/p>\n

In a recent study, the portable system \u2014 which combines a force plate, a depth camera and an interface board \u2014 was used to test the movement, balance and reaction times of 40 college athletes, 20 of whom had recently been diagnosed with a concussion.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>The system\u2019s portability allows it to be useful in a variety of clinical settings. <\/p>\n

By using machine learning \u2014 a process where a computer looks for patterns in data to make better-informed decisions \u2014 the portable system was able to quickly learn the difference between someone who is healthy and someone who has a concussion.<\/p>\n

For example, those with a concussion were more likely to have slower reaction times, walk slower and struggle more with maintaining their balance, particularly when asked to complete tasks with eyes closed or while counting backwards from 100 in intervals of seven.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing forward, we can have individuals take the assessment when they are healthy to establish a baseline. This is where the machine learning comes into play,\u201d Guess said. \u201cThen, if they sustain a possible concussion in the future, taking the same assessment again and comparing the results with the baseline data helps us know if the individual\u2019s movement and motor control were impacted by possible cognitive damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guess, whose background is in engineering and biomechanics, is the director of the Mizzou Motion Analysis Center, a state-of-the-art gait lab in the College of Health Sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cMizzou is a great place for this research because of the opportunities I have to collaborate with clinicians who have expertise in orthopedics, physical therapy, sports rehabilitation and exercise science,\u201d Guess said. \u201cIn their clinical settings, they often work with a variety of patients and see the need for a better way to assess potential concussions, and with my engineering background, I knew I could help develop a portable system to help meet the demand.\u201d<\/p>\n

While college athletes were the subjects of this particular study, the Mizzou Point-of-Care Assessment System could also help assess potential concussions for individuals working as first responders, military personnel or in other professions with a higher likelihood of head injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis portable system can also be a helpful tool in measuring an individual\u2019s recovery after a concussion,\u201d Guess said. \u201cThe last thing you want is to send someone back out on the field or into a work environment when they are not ready. Hopefully, our efforts can help people stay as safe as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

While a small number of these portable systems are currently being tested for research purposes, Guess hopes they can one day be manufactured at a larger scale before being used in a variety of clinical and athletic settings.<\/p>\n

\u201cA machine learning approach to concussive group classification using discrete outcome measures from a low-cost movement-based assessment system\u201d was published in Medical Engineering and Physics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Brian Consiglio The Mizzou Point-of-Care Assessment System is a portable tool that can assess an individual\u2019s movement,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-173966","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}