Publications

The Multi-modal Early Detection Interactive Classifier (MEDIC) is a triage system designed to enable rapid assessment of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) when access to expert diagnosis is limited as in a battlefield setting. MEDIC is based on supervised classification that requires three fundamental components to function correctly; these are data, features, and truth. The MEDIC system can act as a data collection device in addition to being an assessment tool. Therefore, it enables a solution to one of the fundamental challenges in understanding mTBI: the lack of useful data. The vision of MEDIC is to fuse results from stimulus tests in each of four modalitites - auditory, occular, vocal, and intracranial pressure - and provide them to a classifier. With appropriate data for training, the MEDIC classifier is expected to provide an immediate decision of whether the subject has a strong likelihood of having sustained an mTBI and therefore requires an expert diagnosis from a neurologist. The tests within each modalitity were designed to balance the capacity of objective assessment and the maturity of the underlying technology against the ability to distinguish injured from non-injured subjects according to published results. Selection of existing modalities and underlying features represents the best available, low cost, portable technology with a reasonable chance of success.