According to research from the American College of Sports Medicine, a staggering 85% of sports-related concussions go undetected at the time of injury. This is primarily due to two factors -- rudimentary, symptom-based approaches (asking the athlete “do you feel headache or dizziness?”), and cultural factors, which incentivize players to not report immediately, but rather keep playing.
Now, Averia Health, a startup with a co-founder at the University of Chicago, is hoping to make concussion diagnoses accessible, affordable and a lot more efficient. It has created a low cost, highly reactive, eye movement tracker that, paired with a simple smartphone application, takes all of two minutes to provide an accurate diagnosis.
Averia’s solution uses an iOS app and a uniquely designed headset made of lasercut cardboard -- much like Google's VR headsets -- and also contains mirrors and LED lights for contrast and illumination. After installing the app, users insert their smartphone into the headset and allow the patient to wear it. The rear facing phone camera then records a video tracking eye movements using visual stimuli. It records irregularities and disconjugacy, which have been medically proven to demonstrate occurrence of concussions.
Rohan Suri, co-founder of the company, had witnessed his younger brother suffer a sports-related concussion, the symptoms for which only worsened weeks later when headaches began to resurface. “I was aware of another eye-tracking tool, which though effective, was way more expensive than what most high school teams can afford. I wondered if there was a cheaper way to record eye movements -- that’s when I thought of using my father’s new iPhone 6,” he said.
“I was aware of another eye-tracking tool, which though effective, was way more expensive than what most high school teams can afford. I wondered if there was a cheaper way to record eye movements -- that’s when I thought of using my father’s new iPhone 6,” he said.
While concussion diagnoses tools used by collegiate and professional sports teams can cost upwards of $20,000, Averia is currently providing its low-cost, simple setup for $5 per athlete, per year. The startup has diagnosed over 50 concussions in active pilots at Fairfax County Public Schools and Novant Health Network, and they plan to have the device in 11 high schools and 40 low-cost clinics by the end of this year.
Rohan, and his technical co-founder Samuel Damashek, are seniors at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, VA. While Samuel will attend Carnegie Mellon University in the fall, Rohan is committed to study computer science at Stanford. Their third co-founder, Pranay Singh, hails from the same high school, and is currently a freshman studying economics at the University of Chicago. He works on the marketing aspects of the business.
Averia has gained significant traction pitching at student venture competitions around the country. Pranay presented and won fourth place at Future Founders’ U.Pitch held at 1871 in November last year. Rohan was most recently at the TCU Values and Ventures Business Plan Competition in Dallas/Fort Worth, where Averia got an honorable mention as well as a ‘Founders Award’ with prizes totaling $7,500, which they hope to utilize on continued marketing and sales. The company will next present at the prestigious University of Chicago College New Venture Challenge on June 1st this summer. Rohan was also recently named as one of the youngest on Forbes’ annual 30 under 30 list in the healthcare category-- and this exposure didn’t exactly hurt, either.
Though they have legal and medical professionals advising them, the team has identified regulatory compliance and liability as a challenge. They are cognizant of how far this technology could apply, even outside of concussions. “Eye-tracking at a lower cost can provide insight into where the brain is ‘looking’ -- and this can have applications in diagnosing other conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),” Rohan says.
