Addenbrooke's at the double in brain injury cash awards
The Ministry of Defence says it is delighted with the awards and the likely benefit for sufferers among members of the armed forces.
The projects are funded through the Invention for Innovation (i4i) Funding At the Speed of Translation (FAST) 4 Awards supporting healthcare technologies to prevent, diagnose and manage acquired brain injuries and recovery from ABI as a consequence of traumatic brain injury, stroke, tumours and infections.
Funded projects will help fill evidence gaps identified in the Concussion in Sport Research Forum’s report published last September.
The funding opportunity was developed in partnership with the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Brain Injury based at Addenbrooke's and the Defence Medical Services.
FAST is aimed at innovators in need of a small amount of funding to answer a specific question, or to finance a single piece of activity to advance healthcare technologies and interventions.
One of the funded projects is from Dr Virginia Newcombe of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust called: "Integration of interactive and passive movement assessments into an App for mild traumatic brain injury (I am brain aware - Movemed)."
Dr Newcombe is a Royal College of Emergency Medicine Professor and an academic consultant in neurosciences and trauma intensive care medicine and emergency medicine at Addenbrooke’s. This work is in collaboration with Dr Ben Davies, a neurosurgical resident at CUH.
Dr Newcombe said: “I’m delighted that this funding will enable us to expand the app I’m developing as part of my NIHR Rosetrees Trust Advanced Fellowship to include assessment of movement and coordination. Psychomotor slowing is a key issue following traumatic brain injury, and this development will help us better understand and monitor patients’ recovery.”
Psychomotor slowing refers to a noticeable slowing down of mental and physical activity. It can manifest as slowness in speech, thinking, and body movements.
Another winner is CUH's Dr Laura Watson with a project called: "Predicting energy requirements in traumatic brain injury using 3D body shape app and indirect calorimetry."
Dr Watson is a metabolic physiologist and based in the NIHR Cambridge Clinical Research Facility at Addenbrooke's. Her work is a collaboration with Dr Alasdair Jubb who is a consultant in neurosciences and trauma intensive care medicine and anaesthesia at CUH.
Professor Peter Hutchinson, director of the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Brain Injury said: “We are delighted to partner with the NIHR i4i Programme on this competitive FAST themed call, and have been impressed by the number of high quality applications received.
“This significant investment will make a real difference for patients and their families, unlocking the opportunity to further develop novel HealthTech and generating evidence to support the uptake of these innovations.”
Dr Philip Woodgate, Director of Research, Defence Medical Services, Ministry of Defence said: “We look forward to harnessing the outputs of the projects to better prevent, detect and treat TBI for the benefit of civilian and military patients.”
Also included in the 35 is Dr Daniel Whitehouse, University of Cambridge, who was selected for: "Prehospital sampling of brain injury biomarkers in mild traumatic brain injury: a feasibility study.”