The military’s effort to create a system to easily and quickly test for a brain injury did not end with the i-STAT blood test, that I first reported in 2017. The DHA (Defense Health Agency), a federal Combat Support Agency, is now promoting a new product with the same goal. However, this new DHA product takes a different route.

On June 30, Navy Hospital Corpsmen from II Marine Expeditionary Force, located at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, tested diagnoses prototypes under the Traumatic Brain Injury Field Assessment Program: A handheld hemorrhage detector, a non-invasive scanner like low-power radiofrequency waves, was tested, as it measured changes in optical density or electromagnetic fields. Additionally, medics tested a number of digital neurocognitive assessments. This testing software can be stored on a phone or tablet, thereby replacing paper-and-pencil assessments. Importantly, the prototypes tested do not require blood proteins and, therefore, no blood draw is needed for diagnosis.