Deans' stroke musings: These exoskeleton heels could help stroke victims walk again

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, April 2, 2015

These exoskeleton heels could help stroke victims walk again

I'd be willing to bet your doctor won't see or recommend these for 30 years unless you wave them under their nose. I waved the Saeboflex under my doctors nose and just got criticism of the person writing the paper. He obviously had no intention of ever opening his mind to any new knowledge. I got a new doctor right after that, not that the new one knew any more but I wasn't going to pay money to one so stupid.
http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/02/feet-exoskeletons/

It isn't quite the soft exosuit that DARPA's working on, but scientists have developed a lightweight exoskeleton that'll take some of the work out of walking. Before you get too excited though, this is less Edge of Tomorrow and more along the lines of mechanical engineering. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon and North Carolina State University devised a way to use springs and ratchets to fashion a sort of boot that increases walking efficiency by seven percent compared to folks wearing regular shoes. The idea is to make it easier for the disabled, paralyzed or stroke victims to improve their walking ability without expensive motors and battery packs.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the passive setup draws inspiration from our existing musculature system. Specifically, the Achilles tendon, ankle and calf. It uses a mechanical clutch (in parallel with calf muscles) that engages a spring when the foot is on the ground and then releases in the air for freedom of motion. All that to say, it requires less energy to walk with these than otherwise.
The efficiency bump has a few roadblocks for now according to a paper (PDF) published in Nature. Chiefly, it only applies at a normal walking speed and even then, only on level ground. More research is on deck, with plans to implement electronics that'd adjust when the springs would release and tailor the setup to individual walking styles or even graded terrain. The ultimate goal? That'd be extending active years for the elderly. The researchers hope to partner with a sportswear company and sell a commercial version that'd cost less than a pair of ski boots, too. In case you're curious as to how it all works, that's what the video below is for.

Video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=92zPP9wLVz8