Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Rehabilitation glove uses artificial muscles

I know this is actually meant for quadraplegics but it could easily be used for stroke rehab. And it would be a lot less conspicious than the SaeboFlex
http://www.gizmag.com/go/3437/
from Oct. 2004 I wonder what happened to it? There is a tremendous need for something like this. As a joke I once mentioned to someone that I needed little motors for each of my fingers to passively flex and extend them thousands of times daily. Two problems with this; no thumb, getting a glove on a spastic hand is nigh impossible. Where did the prototype end up?
I found this one by backtracking a search hit on my blog that led to a Polish search engine looking for rehabilitation gloves.
A rehabilitation glove powered by artificial muscles has won the recent AUD $10,000 British Council Eureka Prize for inspiring science. Designed by the Quadriplegic Hand Research Unit at the Royal North Shore Hospital, the invention will help people with permanent hand-movement loss to perform the daily functions most of us take for granted.
The Australian design is the first medical application to use dynamic actuators that contract when stimulated in a similar way to normal muscles. It opens up new therapeutic possibilities for those suffering from paralysed hands and future applications may even see artificial muscles implanted in the body to enable bionic functionality.
Currently one of the most effective ways to rehabilitate damaged hands or to maintain supple conditions for paralysed hands is by a gentle, continuous motion of hand joints. This often requires intensive attention over long periods, making it unfeasible for a therapist to be continuously present.
With the rehabilitation glove each joint can be independently moved to a desired angle. Portable control software allows the therapist to program desired force, speed and range of motion for each of the15 finger/ thumb joints in the hand, giving continuous passive joint movements for hours at a time.
The Rehabilitation Glove will provide a light hand grasp with a controllable holding force. For people with paralysed hands, this function can be triggered using an external switch. This beneficial feature allows the device to control and maintain a grasp force, thereby securing the grip on objects held.
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