Overview
This study is being done to learn how information from blood tests, medical records, and wearable devices that track sleep, activity, and heart rate can help predict how people recover after a concussion. The goal is to improve how doctors monitor recovery and give patients better information about what to expect after a head injury.
Description
The PIONEER-Prognosis Study is a prospective, multicenter, observational cohort study of adults aged 18 to 65 years who present to the emergency department (ED) within 24 hours of a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) and have a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 15, meaning they are fully alert. Although these injuries are classified as mild, up to half of such patients report persistent symptoms such as headaches, cognitive difficulties, and mood disturbances a year after injury, and clinicians currently lack a reliable way to predict, at the time of the ED visit, which patients will recover fully and which will not.
This study will apply a new classification framework proposed by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), called Clinical, Biomarker, Imaging, and Modifiers (CBI-M). This framework combines clinical findings; blood tests for two brain injury proteins, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCH-L1); results of any head computed tomography (CT) scan performed as part of routine care; and psychosocial and environmental factors. The study will evaluate how well this framework predicts recovery.
A total of 500 participants will be enrolled from five EDs in Michigan, Oregon, and California that already use GFAP and UCH-L1 blood tests in clinical care. Participants will provide a blood sample and clinical information during their ED visit, wear a WHOOP wearable device continuously for 90 days to record heart rate, heart rate variability, sleep, and physical activity, complete a brief daily symptom survey through the device application, and complete additional symptom and sleep questionnaires by email or phone at 1 week, 1 month, and 2 months.
Trained interviewers from a central outcomes team will contact participants by telephone at 14 and 90 days to assess functional recovery using the Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended (GOS-E), along with symptoms, cognition, life satisfaction, post-traumatic stress symptoms, and resilience.
The primary outcome is complete functional recovery, defined as a GOS-E score of 8 at 90 days. The study does not assign any treatment; participants receive standard ED care. Findings are intended to improve prognostic accuracy, patient counseling, and follow-up care for the largest subgroup of patients with TBI. The prediction models developed will be made available as a free web-based tool. The study is funded by the U.S. Department of Defense and is expected to take approximately 4 years to complete, with each participant followed for 3 months.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- Diagnosis of mild traumatic brain injury (TBI), as defined by the 2023 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM) criteria.
- Enrollment within 24 hours of injury.
- Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 15 at emergency department (ED) enrollment.
- Consent to study procedures, including:
- Blood collection for biomarker measurement, including glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCH-L1).
- Continuous use of a health-monitoring device for 3 months.
- Follow-up assessments by telephone at 14 days and 90 days.
- Completion of a daily symptom inventory via WHOOP/smartphone.
Exclusion Criteria:
- Pre-existing neurological disability or pre-injury condition that would have resulted in a Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended (GOS-E) score \<8 if assessed before the injury.
- High risk of loss to follow-up, including patients without a reliable phone, those experiencing homelessness, those who are incarcerated, or those who are wards of the state.
- Pregnancy at the time of enrollment.
- Inability to speak English or Spanish, which would prevent completion of the required assessments.
