A clever new app from Silicon Valley startup HHITT, Inc. provides a mobile neurocognitive assessment tool for the assistance in making the diagnosis of concussions, as well as treatment of them should a person be found to be concussed.

This new app is a gamechanger, and it’s called HHITT (short for Handheld Head Injury Treatment Tool). The tool can be administered directly after a concussion is suspected of occurring through a seven-minute long test. And when partnered with telemedicine, it also allows a user to be evaluated quickly by a certified physician on the sideline, court or field.

A user must first take a baseline test, which is followed by a post-injury test in the event a head injury is suspected.

The main test itself includes nine interactive tests covering short-term memory, balance, coordination, visual memory, impulse control, long-term memory, reaction time, problem-solving and color recognition, all vital in making an accurate diagnosis of concussion.

Results of the two tests are then rapidly viewed and analyzed by a concussion professional available through the app to determine if any changes in brain function have occurred; the telemedicine providers come through a service called Doctors on Demand, and as the name suggests are able to offer on-demand diagnostics and are certified physicians.

“A kid from Palo Alto actually got a concussion,” Palo Alto Knights football program coach and President of HHITT Mike Piha told Palo Alto Online. “We gave the kid the test, and seven of the nine parts of the test he failed. It was neat to see it work there. It’s a really unique test, the only one in the country with telemedicine.”

Good timing

The launch of HHITT comes at a time where concussions, particularly in football, have received widespread attention from the movie Concussion to exposes in media on the risks involved, including the death this week of a 25-year-old former college football player who sustained repeated hits to the head, resulting in Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a traumatic brain disorder caused by multiple concussions.

According to Headcase, head impacts and concussions caused by contact sports are a quickly growing epidemic among young athletes, with emergency room visits for concussions in kids ages 8 to 13 years old having doubled, and concussions having risen 200 percent among teens ages 14 to 19 in the last decade.

While the HHITT app doesn’t prevent concussions occurring, what it does, and does well, is assist coaches and support staff to make a more informed decision as to whether a concussion has occurred, and hence whether medical treatment is required, a vital step in preventing serious long-term injury or even death occurring.

The HHITT app is available on iOS via the Apple App Store and on Android via Google Play.

Image credit: HHITT/ screenshot