Diagnostics for stroke and brain trauma in ambulances

Research Project, 2018 – 2025

The overall long term goal of the proposed research project is the development of novel, compact, portable diagnostics system for stroke and trauma for use in ambulances. Portable diagnostics for ambulances remains a major challenge for the 20 million individuals who each year sufferers a stroke or brain trauma.
When an ambulance arrives at the scene of an accident or a suspected stroke the objective is to reduce the risk for death and provide optimal care of the patient. The patient is evaluated and decisions made, with limited information, on which hospital the patient needs to be transported to and on whether to initiate some form of treatment. Both these groups of patients, which are subject to these life and death decisions, would clearly benefit if medical personal had access to the additional support of diagnostic tools. No such tools are today available in clinical praxis. This research proposal is focused on microwave based systems research aiming towards compact, portable, wireless and cost-efficient, diagnostics systems for stroke and trauma. A sucessful outcome requires advances in several research areas related to microwave systems, including hardware, near field measurements, antenna system optimization, signal processing and microwave imaging. As the first group in the world we are developing such tools and have with our clinical partners started to evaluate the first generations in clinical trials.