nuroflux™
monitoring brain activity and brain blood flow
nuroflux™
monitoring brain activity and brain blood flow
Critical Need
- Worldwide there is a stroke every 2 seconds
- With aging populations the incidence of stoke will increase
- CT perfusion scans do not provide continuous monitoring
- Standard care relies upon subjective observations
- For an oxygen-starved brain, every second counts
Our Story
When a loved one suffered multiple secondary strokes in between CT scans, we were desperate to know why these strokes were not detected.
CT perfusion scans provide snapshots in time but due to radiation exposure can only be performed once every 24 hours.
in-between CT scans patients are at risk of early neurological deterioration (i.e., secondary stroke), which can occur in up to 40% of patients.
There is currently no device for the continuous monitoring of brain activity and brain blood flow in between CT scans.
Standard care relies upon subjective, intermittent nursing assessments which are ineffective in sedated or unconscious patients. One study demonstrated that these protocols were only able to detect neurological deterioration in 45% of positive cases.
nuroflux™ was born out of seeing how blind the situation can be.
This prompted a group of engineers to team up with clinicians and commercialisation experts to define, discover and deliver.
The Challenge
Stroke is a challenging black box that necessitates a cross-disciplinary approach to innovation. This requires bringing together multiple fields of medicine (radiology, neurology, geriatrics, rehabilitation) and engineering (biomedical, design, electrical, mechanical, software). The team also incorporates commercialisation and business expertise, ensuring that our research is effectively translated to maximise societal benefit on a global scale.
Our Goal & Vision
We set out to develop the world's first wearable to non-invasively monitor brain activity and brain blood flow, key metrics relevant to stroke and other neurological disorders.
Our vision is to improve stroke patient care and help first-responders and clinicians access real-time objective insights in the area of stroke - and beyond.
Future Horizons
After speaking with a range of clinicians, it turns out there could be broad utility for our multi-modal wearable. Among the range of opportunities, there is interest in monitoring patients with conditions such as delirium and traumatic brain injury where hypoperfusion is suspected to play a role. The inverse has also been of great interest, with the cognitive benefits of improved brain blood flow well-documented. It is likely that nuroflux™ will find additional utility beyond medical applications.