There’s a glut of startups and established companies whose mission it is to provide a quick and accurate way to assess for possible concussions. One startup that recently joined the fray got some significant exposure from the NFL itself.
That company is EyeGuide, whose product, Focus, promises a rapid eye movement test that is already used by 30 sports organizations across the U.S. That’s according to Patrick Carney, who pitched EyeGuide as a finalist at the NFL’s 1st & Future startup competition in February.
“What if there was a game-changing objective, low-cost, sideline detection tool that let us detect impairment and improve the information available for the road to recovery?” he asked the panel of judges and crowd of spectators at the event one night before the Philadelphia Eagles — whose logo was visible on Carney’s outfit during the pitch — won the Super Bowl.
Carney and EyeGuide founder Brian Still, an English professor at Texas Tech, competed in the “Therapies To Help Speed Recovery” category, but did not win the $50,000 in funding from the NFL — RecoverX took that category’s prize. But the Focus product seemed to intrigue the 1st & Future panel. It tracks 1,200 eye movements as the eyes follow a bouncing ball on an iPad, and plots them on a circular graph. Eye movements that stay tight to the circle indicate normal condition, while movements that appear haphazard suggest there could be a concussion or other brain-related issue, according to Carney’s pitch. All of that takes 10 seconds, Carney explained.
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He told The Philadelphia Citizen he would like to see Focus be as prominent on the sidelines at sporting events as AEDS are in public places. He wants the technology to be ready immediately whenever an athlete comes off the field seeming not quite alright.
“I think we are different because this is something people really need, and it’s a solution to a pretty serious issue,” Carney told the Citizen.
“By having 1,200 data points collected in just 10 seconds, this device is very powerful to help flag that there may be an issue and it may warrant further clinical intervention or medical care,” Carney told CBS Philadelphia.
Focus has been tested at MMA bouts and is in use at major sports universities like Penn State. According to Carney, it is priced according to a licensing model, where teams, coaches, or whole organizations pay $200 every month for the first year and then $100 per month every year thereafter for the complete software and hardware package and unlimited testing.