After the death of actress Natasha Richardson from traumatic brain injury following what seemed to be a very minor incident, many people are concerned that they may suffer a closed head injury that may turn out to be fatal. This may lead to more people rushing to the emergency room to check for brain injury from minor falls. A new test promises to help diagnose several types of traumatic brain injury without invasive surgery. The test is known as magnetoencephalography (MEG), and it utilizes an array of 248 sensors placed outside the head to evaluate the function of the brain's magnetic fields.

MEG requires only 45-60 seconds to evaluate the function of the brain and it has already proven to be significantly better at detecting several types of brain injury than existing techniques such as functional MRI or single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). One reason for its effectiveness may be its ability to take images of the brain with millisecond resolution, as opposed to fMRI, which requires several seconds to resolve a single image, and SPECT, which requires 15-20 seconds to acquire a full image.

Although this work is in its early stages, MEG may ultimately help solve some persistent questions about traumatic brain injury and prevent further tragedies like that suffered by Richardson.

If you or a loved one has suffered a traumatic brain injury as a result of someone else's negligence or deliberate misconduct, you deserve compensation for the unalterable damage done to your life. Schedule a free, no-obligation brain injury consultation with the Norfolk, Virginia personal injury lawyers at Kalfus Nachman today to learn how we can help.