Deans' stroke musings: Firefighters' positioning system may be used to monitor walking difficulty for elderly

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 14, 2016

Firefighters' positioning system may be used to monitor walking difficulty for elderly

This should be easily able to be reused in objectively measuring walking problems after stroke. Then our therapists could create protocols to fix those problems. Everything in stroke is so easily fixable with just a bit of intelligence and effort. Effort seems to be the sticking point because our stroke associations are fixated on the wrong things; F.A.S.T., prevention, awareness.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=162931&CultureCode=en

12 April 2016 KTH The Royal Institute of Technology

A positioning system adapted for use in fire rescue operations will soon be tested on senior citizens in Sweden as a way to spot signs of early stage Parkinson's disease and other mobility problems.

Inside the heel of a boot, advanced sensors designed at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm make it possible for emergency operations commanders to follow smoke divers' exact movements in any building — even 25 metres below ground. The system, which includes an accelerometer and gyroscope, plus a processor, can withstand shock and high temperatures and remains operational where GPS positioning systems fail.

The module is available under an Open Source License and is now marketed by GT Silicon in Kanpur, India.

"And in addition to saving lives in emergencies, it can also be used to help senior citizens maintain their mobility and independence for as long as possible," says Peter Händel, Professor of Signal Processing at KTH.

In September, the researchers will work with a group of senior citizens to test a new version of system, which is designed to collect additional data that produces a detailed picture of foot movements. These special insoles could be placed in ordinary shoes, to gather data about a person’s steps, Händel says.

"Doctors could see how forces are distributed in the foot, and detect problems such as early-stage Parkinson’s," he says. "This kind of information could also allow caregivers to predict when people should start using mobility aids — before further problems arise."

The small sensor in the shoe carefully measures the movement of the foot and directional changes, whether the user walks, runs, jumps or crawls. So, there are more potential uses for the technology. For example, behavioral research could take advantage of the data on people's movements.

Sports is another area where positioning technology can be useful. Athletes can measure their own movements and analyse whether these can be optimised to improve performance or to reduce damage.

The Open Shoe Project started as a joint collaboration between KTH and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. It is now run within SAATH (Seamless affordable assistive technology for health), which is a Indo-Swedish project with KTH, University of Gävle, Robotdalen and Brepus Castel AB as Swedish partners, and IIT Kanpur and IISc as Indian partners.
Video:
https://youtu.be/kDtx7U4Ww44