Use of brain electrical activity to quantify traumatic brain injury in the emergency department.

Primary objective: To validate a QEEG algorithm on traumatic brain injury in an Emergency Department (ED) setting.Methods and procedures: EEG data were collected from 105 patients with head injury (53 CT+ and 52 CT−) and 50 ED controls. Ten minutes of eyes closed resting EEG was collected from five frontal locations. A discriminant index of the probability of belonging to the TBI CT+ group was computed. Analysis of variance was computed comparing this index across the three patient groups. Using ROC curves, the p < 0.05 confidence level was determined to compute sensitivity and specificity for the TBI CT+ population.Results: CT+ patients had a mean TBI discriminant index of 80.4, CT− patients 38.9 and controls 24.5; F = 70.2, p < 0.0001. Sensitivity was 92.45% for the CT+ group and specificity was 90.00% for the control group.Conclusions: The TBI discriminant index appears to be a sensitive index of brain function. It may be used to suggest whether or not a patient presenting with altered mental status re...