Students: Kithara Manawadu, Taylor Pearce, Sarah Mae Sparkes
Program: Biomedical Engineering
Concussions in sports are both common and dangerous. While most athletes will fully recover with appropriate treatment, a lack of an objective concussion screening method increases the danger of a concussion going untreated. This can be problematic in sports, where athletes are eager to return to play and may try to hide their concussion symptoms. There are many dangers of untreated concussions, including mental and physical health impacts, increased risk of repeated concussions, and risk of second impact syndrome. To reduce the risk of untreated concussions, our capstone team has decided to develop a rapid, saliva-based lateral flow device to be used by adult athletes following a suspected brain injury.