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.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Interactive cueing with walk-Mate for Hemiparetic Stroke Rehabilitation

This might be the walk-mate;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gogzSan8EdQ

http://www.jneuroengrehab.com/content/9/1/58/abstract

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Many techniques that compensate for locomotion problems in daily life using externally controlled stimulation have recently been reported. These techniques are beneficial for effortlessly supporting patients' locomotive functions, but the users of such devices must necessarily remain dependent on them. It is possible that some individuals with gait impairment may be prevented recovering locomotive function. From a rehabilitation viewpoint, it may therefore be supposed that ideally, devices that can be used in daily life to improve the locomotive functions of the body itself should be proposed.

Methods

We evaluate the effectiveness of Walk-Mate, which has been used mainly as a gait compensation device, as a gait rehabilitation training device by analyzing improvement in locomotion before, during and after rehabilitation in hemiparetic patients and comparing it with a previous gait training method. Walk-Mate generates a model walking rhythm in response to a user's locomotion in real time, and by indicating this rhythm using auditory stimuli, provides a technology that supports walking by reducing asymmetries and fluctuations in foot contact rhythm. If patients can use the system to learn a regulated walking rhythm, then it may also be expected to fulfil the functions of a gait rehabilitation training device for daily life.

Results

With regard to asymmetry, significantly improvements were seen for compensatory movement during training using Walk-Mate, but improvements were not retained as rehabilitative results. Regarding fluctuations in the foot contact period, significant improvement was observed for compensatory movement during training and these significant improvements were retained as rehabilitative results. In addition, it became clear that such improvement could not be adequately obtained by the previously proposed training technique utilizing constant rhythmic auditory stimulation.

Conclusions

Walk-Mate effectively compensated for locomotion problems of hemiparetic patients by improving gait rhythm both during and after training, suggesting that locomotive function can be effectively recovered in some patients. The interactive mechanism of Walk-Mate may be capable of simultaneously achieving the aims of gait compensation and gait rehabilitation training methods previously developed under individual frameworks. Walk-Mate is a promising technology for assisting the reintegration of disabled persons into society.

The complete article is available as a provisional PDF. The fully formatted PDF and HTML versions are in production.

No comments:

Post a Comment