A proper running technique focusing on every step can help an athlete increase efficiency while preventing injury. Specifically, how the foot strikes the ground can affect performance, comfort, and even pain following an exercise routine. Engineers at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University have developed an electronic insole that is able to sense the (Read more...)
Tag: Rehab
Grasp Feedback Technology to Help Prosthetic Users Feel What They’re Holding
Prosthetic devices of the future, in order to be highly functional and easy to use, will have to incorporate sensors that can relay to the user the pressure of a hand grasp and what the texture of a touched object is like. Researchers from Rice University in Texas and University of Pisa in Italy have […]
Manual Standing Wheelchair Lets Users Control It Whether Sitting or Upright
The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, recently renamed to Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, has developed a new wheelchair that allows its users to switch between a sitting and standing positions while retaining the ability to move and steer the chair in any direction. The fully mechanical device uses bicycle chains to transfer power from a tank tread-li (Read more...)
EduExo Educational Exoskeleton Robotics Kit Now on Kickstarter
Exoskeletons are an emerging field of engineering that is already allowing thousands of disabled people to regain arm movement and even paralyzed people to walk upright. To help promote the development of new devices and get people excited about exoskeletons, an educational kit is being promoted through a Kickstart funding campaign. The EduExo kit (Read more...)
Smart Tactile Touchpad Helps Visually Impaired People Better Understand Their Surroundings (Video)
At École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, engineers have developed a novel touchpad that can represent various objects, idea, and locations to help visually impaired people to learn, navigate, and interact with the world. As part of the BlindPAD project, the device has a bunch of knobs that can pop up o (Read more...)
Tecla-e Wireless Lets People with Limited Mobility Control Variety of Digital Devices
Komodo OpenLab, a company based in Toronto, Canada, released a new device that lets severely paralyzed people operate Android and iOS tablets and smartphones, as well as other devices, using standard accessibility tools such as sip and puff controllers, buttons, and switches. The new Tecla-e provides wireless connectivity with the devices it contro (Read more...)
Indi Augmentative and Alternative Communication Device for Non-Verbal People
Tobii Dynavox, a Swedish company that focuses on building devices that help people with various communication issues to get their voices out. Their new Indi device is a touchscreen tablet targeted for non-verbal communicators, designed to make it easier to talk with those around using pictures that are turned into sentences. Though most users will (Read more...)
Hill-Rom’s New Monarch Battery Powered Airway Clearance System
A number of conditions can cause fluid and mucus to build up in the lungs, causing difficulty breathing and leading to serious complications. Patients with cystic fibrosis are particularly affected, and caretakers have been helping to perform chest physical therapy (CPT) techniques for decades to help dislodge the mucus plugs and excess of secretio (Read more...)
Cameras and Eyetrackers to Study How Kids With Cochlear Implants Learn
At the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center scientists are working on figuring out how young deaf kids adjust to their new cochlear implants and how they utilize the technology to study the world around them. While the devices liberate the hearing sense, children with cochlear implants are not as quick to learn new words as […]
Solar-Powered Touch-Sensitive Electronic Skin for Next Generation Prosthetics
At the University of Glasgow in Scotland, researchers have developed a way of creating touch sensitive artificial skin that, as an added bonus, is also photovoltaic and therefore self-powered. This is a surprising development, as prosthetics typically consume a lot of energy and are always powered by an external source such as a battery. (Read more...)
Touch and Sound Replace Sight to Let Blind “See” Computer Screens
At Purdue University researchers are working on developing technology that would allow blind people to get a sense of what is displayed on a computer screen. The technology relies on hearing generated sounds and holding onto a force-feedback pen, similar to those common in table-top 3D visualization setups. As the user moves a cursor on […]
Fastest Brain-Computer Interface Lets Severely Paralyzed Type Quickly
At Stanford University, researchers have given severely paralyzed people the fastest brain-computer interface yet. This is measured in terms of how fast they were able to type using an on-screen matrix of letters. Two patients with ALS and one with a spinal cord injury simply imagined moving a physical computer mouse, though their hands were [&hell (Read more...)
Nano Thread Enables Scientists to Extend Length of Brain Implant Efficacy
Researcher Dr. Luan and his interdisciplinary team from the University of Texas at Austin have developed an ultra flexible nanoelectronic thread (NET) that has the potential to offer a new type of the long-term neural implants. Neural probes are used to directly measure or even stimulate electrical activity in specific regions of the brain. However (Read more...)
Adaptive Virtual Reality Headset for People with Common Vision Disorders
Virtual reality headsets are expected to become very popular in the coming years. IMAX is even opening up theaters dedicated to this medium. A problem is that VR headsets are optimized for people with perfect vision, so those that wear glasses can have a lot of discomfort during long VR sessions. The screen in standard […]
This post Adaptive (Read more...)
Individual Control of Magnetic Micromachines Within The Body
Magnetic micromachines can be delivered into the body and then controlled externally using a magnetic field. Such micromachines could be used to deliver a therapeutic agent to a specific location in a minimally invasive manner or control adaptive implants. However, in many cases multiple micromachines may be required. For example, a ‘swarm&rs (Read more...)
A Non-Invasive Brain-Computer Interface for Completely Locked-In Patients: Interview with Dr. Ujwal Chaudhary
Researchers have developed a non-invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) for completely locked-in patients. This is the first time that these patients, with complete motor paralysis but an intact cognitive state, have been able to reliably communicate. A completely locked-in state involves the loss of all motor control, including that of the eye mu (Read more...)
Stentrode Minimally Invasive Brain-Machine Interface: Interview with Dr. Thomas Oxley, Neurologist at Royal Melbourne Hospital
Australian researchers at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the University of Melbourne have developed an electrode that can record brain activity from the motor cortex, without the need for invasive brain surgery. The electrode, called a stentrode, is implanted into a blood vessel in the brain using minimally invasive surgical techniques. The (Read more...)
Biomimetic Artificial Skin Layer with Significant Temperature Sensitivity (VIDEO)
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have developed a material that can sense changes in temperature with more sensitivity than human skin. The team discovered that flexible films made from pectin demonstrate an electrical response, caused by the release of calcium ions, follo (Read more...)
Locked-In ALS Patients Speak Thanks to Transcranial Near-Infrared Spectroscopy
At the Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering in Geneva, Switzerland, four completely paralyzed people suffering from advanced ALS were able to communicate thanks to a cap that measures changes in the oxygenation within the brain. These folks are effectively locked-in, not even having the ability to move their arms and relying on a ventilato (Read more...)
Eyeglasses With Liquid Lenses Automatically Focus on Nearby Objects
Engineers at the University of Utah have developed eyeglasses with tunable lenses that automatically adjust their focus depending on what’s in front of them. The lenses consist of flexible membranes containing liquid glycerin. A battery powered mechanism moves the membranes in relation to each other, changing the overall shape of the lens and (Read more...)