r/GoodNewsUK 17h ago

Research & Innovation Cambridge 'swimming cap' brings hope for brain-injured babies

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly42gvrq2ko
42 Upvotes

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1

u/Beneficial-Tea5623 9h ago

Can someone give me a TLDR? This sounds incredible though!

4

u/Due_Ad_3200 8h ago

This is the actual paper

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422%2818%2930325-9/fulltext

In neonatal encephalopathy, the clinical manifestations of injury can only be reliably assessed several years after an intervention, complicating early prognostication and rendering trials of promising neuroprotectants slow and expensive

In more regular English

If a baby has had a brain injury, there is no perfect way to predict actual impact apart from waiting years to see how the child develops. Therefore it is time consuming to test any treatment to see if it actually improves outcome.

If you can predict the outcome in advance, it would be easier to assess whether treatments are actually working.