Use the labels in the right column to find what you want. Or you can go thru them one by one, there are only 32,362 posts. Searching is done in the search box in upper left corner. I blog on anything to do with stroke. DO NOT DO ANYTHING SUGGESTED HERE AS I AM NOT MEDICALLY TRAINED, YOUR DOCTOR IS, LISTEN TO THEM. BUT I BET THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO GET YOU 100% RECOVERED. I DON'T EITHER BUT HAVE PLENTY OF QUESTIONS FOR YOUR DOCTOR TO ANSWER.
Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain!trillions and trillions of neuronsthatDIEeach day because there areNOeffective 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.
A new wearable device named could help stroke survivors communicate, offering speech support without implants.
The device, called Revoice, uses ultra-sensitive sensors and artificial intelligence to decode speech signals and emotional cues so people with post-stroke speech impairment can communicate.
Worn as a soft, flexible choker, it captures heart rate and tiny vibrations from throat muscles, using those signals to reconstruct intended words and sentences in real time.
The development was led by researchers at the University of Cambridge.
Luigi Occhipinti is professor in Cambridge’s Department of Engineering and led the research.
He said: “When people have dysarthria following a stroke, it can be extremely frustrating for them, because they know exactly what they want to say, but physically struggle to say it, because the signals between their brain and their throat have been scrambled by the stroke.
“That frustration can be profound, not just for the patients, but for their caregivers and families as well.”
The signals from the device are processed by two AI agents: one reconstructs words from fragments of silently mouthed speech, while the other interprets emotional state and context, such as time of day or weather, to expand short phrases into full sentences.
In a small trial with five patients with dysarthria, a common post-stroke speech impairment affecting the muscles used for speaking, the device achieved a word error rate of 4.2 per cent and a sentence error rate of 2.9 per cent.
Unlike existing assistive speech technologies, which often require slow letter-by-letter input, eye tracking or brain implants, the Revoice device is claimed to provide seamless real time communication, turning a few mouthed words into full sentences.
The researchers say the technology could aid stroke rehabilitation and could also support people with conditions such as Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease.
They are planning a clinical study in Cambridge for native English-speaking dysarthria patients to assess viability, which they hope to launch this year.
About half of people develop dysarthria, or dysarthria in combination with aphasia, following a stroke.
Dysarthria is a physical condition that weakens the muscles of the face, mouth and vocal cords. Aphasia affects the ability to understand or produce language.
Dysarthria affects people in different ways and can cause unclear, slurred or slow speech, or short, disjointed bursts rather than full sentences.
Most stroke patients with dysarthria work with a speech therapist to regain their ability to communicate, primarily through repetitive word drills, where patients repeat words or phrases back to the speech therapist.
Typical recovery time varies from a few months to a year or more.
Occhipinti said: “Patients can generally perform the repetitive drills after some practice, but they often struggle with open-ended questions and everyday conversation.
“And as many patients do recover most or all of their speech eventually, there is not a need for invasive brain implants, but there is a strong need for speech solutions that are more intuitive and portable.”
The sensors in the Revoice device capture subtle vibrations from the throat to detect speech signals and decode emotional states from pulse signals.
The device also uses an embedded lightweight large language model, a type of AI system, to predict full sentences, so it uses minimal power.
Working with colleagues in China, the researchers carried out a small trial with five stroke patients with dysarthria, as well as 10 healthy controls.
In the study, participants wore the device and mouthed short phrases.
By nodding twice, they could choose to expand those phrases into sentences using the embedded large language model.
Participants reported a 55 per cent increase in satisfaction, suggesting the device could help stroke patients regain their ability to communicate.
Although extensive clinical trials will be required before the device can be made widely available, the researchers hope future versions will include multilingual capabilities, a broader range of emotional states and fully self-contained operation for everyday use.
Occhipinti said: “This is about giving people their independence back. Communication is fundamental to dignity and recovery.”
But this isn't addressing the wrong signals causing spasticity which I consider the major failure of all eStim techniques.
The proper research on this would be a way
to stop the signals causing spasticity instead of this stupid; 'Hey,
let's try to overcome the spasticity, which doesn't get you recovered at
all!' Does anyone in stroke have any brains at all?
Regardless
of severity, recovery from stroke or spinal cord injury (SCI) is always
a challenging process. This is especially true when the patient’s hands
are affected.
Because
standard physical rehabilitation tends to prioritize therapies focused
on walking and the lower extremities, there’s an unmet need among those
trying to recover the use of their hands, said Chad Bouton, founder and
CEO of Neuvotion, an early-stage medical device company that develops
neuromodulation technologies and products for neurorehabilitation,
brain-computer interfaces, and physical therapy.
“The
hand is very complicated – there are many joints, over 30 muscles
involved, and the hand has a large number of degrees of freedom,” Bouton
told MD+DI.
“With the complexity of the hand, that part of the brain is a bit
larger – so there is more susceptibility for a stroke to compromise a
patient’s hands. And with spinal cord injuries, we also often see a lot
at the neck level that unfortunately affects the hands. Recovery can be
challenging, but that’s what we’ve been focused on.”
Founded
in 2019, Neuvotion’s first product, NeuStim, a non-invasive,
surgery-free, high-precision wearable that electrically stimulates
muscles, has received 510(k) clearance.
The
device supports hand movement recovery after stroke or SCI through the
use of a touchscreen interface that enables clinicians to scan and
pinpoint muscle targets electronically to steer stimulation with
precision.
The
wearable is expected to launch within the next year and help produce
improved outcomes in stroke and SCI rehabilitation with the potential
for earlier intervention depending on how quickly patients are
stabilized.
Intended
to treat adult patients who have experienced a hemiplegic stroke
(paralysis or paresis on one side of the body) or those who have had a
SCI at the fifth cervical vertebra (C-5 level), the NeuStim device can
be initiated as early in the rehab process as the clinical care team
deems appropriate if the necessary clinical requirements for receiving
electrical stimulation are achieved. Evidence suggests that the timing
of intervention can play a role in outcomes, according to Bouton.
“Our
research has shown that when you can start patients on the therapy
earlier if they’re ready, that can help to reverse atrophy and
maladaptation of the neural circuits – these motor circuits that over
time can start to develop ‘bad habits’ because of impaired function,” he
said.
A
wireless, standalone, battery-operated device, NeuStim allows the
clinician to communicate instructions for stimulation from a tablet
interface to the patient once the wearable has been placed on the
affected arm. By sliding a finger over the touchscreen, the clinician
can move the point of stimulation via more than 150 small electrodes
that deliver electrical impulses to the muscles noninvasively through
the skin. Patches that are placed on the skin light up to indicate where
the stimulation point is moving electronically.
“The
electrodes do not need to be moved manually in the conventional way,”
Bouton said. “That method can take hours away from the rehab sessions to
map everything. It can also be much more difficult to find motor
points. But with our approach, we have demonstrated that you can touch a
screen to accomplish this task – and within minutes you can find the
motor points, stimulate the right muscles, and literally get patients
moving again. Insurance covers only a certain amount of time for
rehabilitation. You don’t want to be spending more time on setup.
NeuStim can be placed quickly, in under 90 seconds.”
Developmentally
focused on efficacy and safety, NeuStim’s design and functionality are
the result of a collaborative partnership between Neuvotion and
Intelligent Product Solutions (IPS), an end-to-end company that
specializes in medical device design and development.
While
there are a few contraindications and warnings related to receiving
electrical stimulation that must be considered before beginning the
therapy, including the use of synchronous (or demand) pacemakers and
implantable cardiac defibrillators, the device has been designed for a
variety of patient anatomies, according to Brad Carlson, vice president
of technology and business development at IPS.
“There’s
a human element here and we wanted ease of use to lead to adoption,”
Carlson said. “To ensure safety, we have used biocompatible materials
throughout the design. The device maintains safe stimulation levels on
its own with built-in safety mechanisms to maintain proper operation.”
Stimulation should not be applied over the carotid sinus nerves, particularly in patients with
a known sensitivity to the carotid sinus reflex.
Another innovative design aspect of the device is the thin, flexible patches that hold the electrodes in place.
“This
promotes contractions of the muscles after stroke or spinal cord injury
to reverse that atrophy and to promote rehabilitation or recovery over
time,” said Bouton.
The
specificity at which stimulation can be delivered has been especially
important in stroke recovery. “When you’re talking about the hand and
finger movements, these are very small muscles and muscle targets,” said
Bouton. “With stroke, hypertonicity will commonly occur, and patients
will have excessive flexion. And it’s difficult to counteract that with
conventional therapy when you’re only trying to mechanically move
something. But if you electrically stimulate the opposite side and you
can pinpoint those targets, those muscles can be activated and you can
get movement. Sometimes there’s a response within seconds.” To
promote continuity, stimulation profiles can be established and saved
for each user through the graphical interface. Patients are engaged by
watching the impulses that are sent by the clinician and providing
instant feedback about anything that they’re able to sense or feel
during the therapy, although sensation could be impaired, especially in
SCI cases. “Once
the clinician is set up and they have found those stimulation points,
and we’re seeing muscle activation and movements, they can then save
those patterns into the device for that patient,” Bouton said. “This is a
great feature because when they come in for future sessions their
settings can be loaded and repeated. We can then store those sequences
that the clinical team wants to work on – say, the opening of the hand
and the closing of the hand, or transfer tasks such as picking up
objects and putting them down, or compound movements. This device has
the advanced feature of having these sequences so that patients can be
helped with doing functional movements. And research has shown that if
the patient is actively involved in their therapy, the outcomes are
better.”
With
stimulation information stored, the clinician utilizes a slider on the
touchscreen that resembles a volume control to adjust the intensity or
level of stimulation. There’s also an option to modulate the stimulation
setting, allowing for the intensity to be adjusted up and down, which
contracts the muscle at different levels – something that’s effective
for trying to slow down or reverse any atrophy. This is also beneficial
for activating the muscles in the neural circuits to help promote
recovery, according to Bouton. “The patients can also be actively
involved in attempting these movements, which is common in a rehab
setting. But the difference here is the stimulation can be steered
electronically, and the levels can be adjusted in real-time,” he said.
Bouton
credits the collaboration with IPS with helping to design the device to
offer this level of sophistication. “IPS has been an extension of our
engineering team, and they have been fantastic to work with,” he said.
“Patients have different forearm shapes and sizes. IPS was instrumental
in looking at different sizes and shapes of arms with their human
factors team, which was a big challenge that helped us to shape and size
the design to fit unique anatomies. To be able to keep the device thin,
flexible, and fitting has been a fantastic design element that IPS led.
Future features already being researched
Bouton said Neuvotion has been focused on the next innovations for NeuStim prior to the device appearing on the market.
“Something
that is currently under development in our system as a future feature
is adding artificial intelligence that will allow patients to start a
gross motion that the AI will recognize and infer that they’re trying to
open their hand — and to automatically stimulate the hand to pick up an
object,” Bouton said. “We’ve completed early research studies and we anticipate adding this technology in the coming versions.”
Harvard University's Move Lab has
developed a wearable robotic device aimed at helping stroke survivors
and people with movement impairments regain mobility.
Harvard Move Lab makes wearable robotic devices for stroke victims
Dubbed Reachable, this device can
provide at-home therapy and enable independence in everyday tasks such
as cleaning, while delivering therapeutic benefits.
Design and Functionality
The product is lightweight and can be worn like a harness. It
contains a soft under-arm balloon that inflates and deflates, fitted
with sensors that track the user's movement.
These sensors understand the user's progress and adapt the level of support accordingly.
Therapeutic Effects
The technology is designed to immediately start exercising muscles to help the brain relearn.
Funding and Development
The Reachable team recently received a three-year, $5 million grant
from the U.S. National Science Foundation to expedite the transition of
practical research into the marketplace.
The team received Phase 2 funding in 2023, with the Move Lab as a
core partner, to continue testing and refining the device, aiming for
eventual licensing to a company.
Collaborations and Research
The Move Lab is also funded by the National Institutes of Health to
develop a neuroprosthesis for improving mobility for stroke survivors.
In a past project, Move Lab researchers developed new technology for
measuring sensation and muscle activity.
Reachable's partners include Massachusetts General Hospital, Cecropia
Strong, Imago Rehab, Simbex Product Development, and others.
Expert Insights
“After a stroke, the wearable robotic device’s control system that
synchronises and initiates all the movements that’s broken – not the
muscles,” said Executive Director Paul Sabin in the Harvard John A.
Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).“If we can get
this to people before their muscles atrophy or before the disease
progresses, then they can focus on trying to recover their control
system.”
In simple words; the complete stroke medical world is totally fucking incompetent for not already having protocols on wearables!
With all this information out there who thinks this shows any sign of competence in your stroke medical 'professionals'? No one from the stroke medical world has ever contacted me to tell me I'm full of shit. I'm happily waiting for that day, it will be fun.
Advancements
in wearable technology have created new opportunities to monitor stroke
survivors’ behaviors in daily activities. Research insights are needed
to guide its adoption in clinical practice, address current gaps, and
shape the future of stroke rehabilitation. This project aims to: (1)
Understand stroke rehabilitation researchers’ perspectives on the
opportunities, challenges, and clinical relevance of wearable technology
for stroke rehabilitation, and (2) Identify necessary next steps to
integrate wearable technology in research and clinical practice.
Methods
Using
a phenomenological qualitative design, two 90-minute focus groups were
conducted with 12 rehabilitation researchers. The focus groups consisted
of semi-structured, open-ended questions on functional movement
behavior, motor performance and benefits and pitfalls of wearable
technology. The transcribed focus groups were analyzed using inductive
thematic analysis.
Results
Three
main themes were derived from the analysis: (1) Assessing activity
performance is critical to inform interventions, (2) The demonstrated
benefit is not commensurate with the added hassle, (3) Collaboration is
needed between the industry, academia and end-users. Necessary future
steps were recognized including the identification of intuitive and
actionable metrics, and the integration of sensor-derived data with
electronic health records and into clinical workflow to support
self-management strategies.
Conclusion
Wearable
technology shows great potential to complement and support stroke
rehabilitation. Many key barriers to clinical adoption remain(Well solve them! LEADERS WOULD SOLVE THEM! You're not leaders, are you?)which
underscore the necessity to foster collaborations between industry,
academia, and the participants we serve.
IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION
Wearable
technology provides critical information about activity performance to
understand stroke survivors’ behavior and inform interventions.
Concerted
efforts of interdisciplinary research teams in partnerships with users
and the industry are essential to accelerate clinical and research
adoption.
Summary: Researchers have developed tiny, wireless
devices capable of wrapping around individual neurons, potentially
aiding in the treatment of neurological disorders like multiple
sclerosis.
These devices, made from a soft polymer, roll up snugly
around cell structures when exposed to light, allowing precise
measurement and modulation of cellular activity. As they’re battery-free
and actuated noninvasively by light, thousands of them could be
deployed in the body simultaneously.
This groundbreaking approach
could restore neuron function by acting as synthetic myelin for damaged
axons. Future applications may include integrating circuits for neuron
monitoring and treatments. The research points toward a novel direction
in creating minimally invasive neural interfaces.
Key Facts:
These cell-wearable devices are activated by light, making them battery-free.
The devices wrap around neuronal structures, offering synthetic myelin benefits.
Potential applications include neuron restoration and noninvasive neural modulation.
Source: MIT
Wearable
devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers interact with parts of
our bodies to measure and learn from internal processes, such as our
heart rate or sleep stages.
Now, MIT researchers have
developed wearable devices that may be able to perform similar functions
for individual cells inside the body.
These battery-free,
subcellular-sized devices, made of a soft polymer, are designed to
gently wrap around different parts of neurons, such as axons and
dendrites, without damaging the cells, upon wireless actuation with
light.
This
image shows the researchers’ subcellular-sized devices, which are
designed to gently wrap around different parts of neurons, such as axons
and dendrites, without damaging the cells. The devices could be used to
measure or modulate a neuron’s electrical activity. Credit: Pablo Penso
and Marta Airaghi
By snugly wrapping neuronal processes, they could be used to measure
or modulate a neuron’s electrical and metabolic activity at a
subcellular level.
Because these devices are wireless and
free-floating, the researchers envision that thousands of tiny devices
could someday be injected and then actuated noninvasively using light.
Researchers
would precisely control how the wearables gently wrap around cells, by
manipulating the dose of light shined from outside the body, which would
penetrate the tissue and actuate the devices.
By enfolding axons
that transmit electrical impulses between neurons and to other parts of
the body, these wearables could help restore some neuronal degradation
that occurs in diseases like multiple sclerosis. In the long run, the
devices could be integrated with other materials to create tiny circuits
that could measure and modulate individual cells.
“The
concept and platform technology we introduce here is like a founding
stone that brings about immense possibilities for future research,” says
Deblina Sarkar, the AT&T Career Development Assistant Professor in
the MIT Media Lab and Center for Neurobiological Engineering, head of
the Nano-Cybernetic Biotrek Lab, and the senior author of a paper on
this technique.
Sarkar is joined on the paper by lead author Marta J. I. Airaghi
Leccardi, a former MIT postdoc who is now a Novartis Innovation Fellow;
Benoît X. E. Desbiolles, an MIT postdoc; Anna Y. Haddad ’23, who was an
MIT undergraduate researcher during the work; and MIT graduate students
Baju C. Joy and Chen Song.
The research appears today in Nature Communications Chemistry.
Snugly wrapping cells
Brain
cells have complex shapes, which makes it exceedingly difficult to
create a bioelectronic implant that can tightly conform to neurons or
neuronal processes. For instance, axons are slender, tail-like
structures that attach to the cell body of neurons, and their length and
curvature vary widely.
At the same time, axons and other cellular
components are fragile, so any device that interfaces with them must be
soft enough to make good contact without harming them.
To
overcome these challenges, the MIT researchers developed thin-film
devices from a soft polymer called azobenzene, that don’t damage cells
they enfold.
Due to a material
transformation, thin sheets of azobenzene will roll when exposed to
light, enabling them to wrap around cells. Researchers can precisely
control the direction and diameter of the rolling by varying the
intensity and polarization of the light, as well as the shape of the
devices.
The thin films can form tiny microtubes with diameters that are less
than a micrometer. This enables them to gently, but snugly, wrap around
highly curved axons and dendrites.
“It is possible to very finely
control the diameter of the rolling. You can stop if when you reach a
particular dimension you want by tuning the light energy accordingly,”
Sarkar explains.
The researchers experimented with several
fabrication techniques to find a process that was scalable and wouldn’t
require the use of a semiconductor clean room.
Making microscopic wearables
They
begin by depositing a drop of azobenzene onto a sacrificial layer
composed of a water-soluble material. Then the researchers press a stamp
onto the drop of polymer to mold thousands of tiny devices on top of
the sacrificial layer. The stamping technique enables them to create
complex structures, from rectangles to flower shapes.
A baking
step ensures all solvents are evaporated and then they use etching to
scrape away any material that remains between individual devices.
Finally, they dissolve the sacrificial layer in water, leaving thousands
of microscopic devices freely floating in the liquid.
Once
they have a solution with free-floating devices, they wirelessly
actuated the devices with light to induce the devices to roll. They
found that free-floating structures can maintain their shapes for days
after illumination stops.
The researchers conducted a series of experiments to ensure the entire method is biocompatible.
After
perfecting the use of light to control rolling, they tested the devices
on rat neurons and found they could tightly wrap around even highly
curved axons and dendrites without causing damage.
“To have
intimate interfaces with these cells, the devices must be soft and able
to conform to these complex structures. That is the challenge we solved
in this work. We were the first to show that azobenzene could even wrap
around living cells,” she says.
Among the biggest challenges they
faced was developing a scalable fabrication process that could be
performed outside a clean room. They also iterated on the ideal
thickness for the devices, since making them too thick causes cracking
when they roll.
Because azobenzene is an insulator, one direct
application is using the devices as synthetic myelin for axons that have
been damaged. Myelin is an insulating layer that wraps axons and allows
electrical impulses to travel efficiently between neurons.
In
non-myelinating diseases like multiple sclerosis, neurons lose some
insulating myelin sheets. There is no biological way of regenerating
them. By acting as synthetic myelin, the wearables might help restore
neuronal function in MS patients.
The researchers also demonstrated how the devices can be combined with optoelectrical materials that can stimulate cells.
Moreover,
atomically thin materials can be patterned on top of the devices, which
can still roll to form microtubes without breaking. This opens up
opportunities for integrating sensors and circuits in the devices.
In addition, because they make such a tight connection with cells,
one could use very little energy to stimulate subcellular regions. This
could enable a researcher or clinician to modulate electrical activity
of neurons for treating brain diseases.
“It is exciting to
demonstrate this symbiosis of an artificial device with a cell at an
unprecedented resolution. We have shown that this technology is
possible,” Sarkar says.
In addition to exploring these
applications, the researchers want to try functionalizing the device
surfaces with molecules that would enable them to target specific cell
types or subcellular regions.
“This work is an exciting step toward new symbiotic neural interfaces acting at the level of the individual axons and synapses.
“When
integrated with nanoscale 1- and 2D conductive nanomaterials, these
light-responsive azobenzene sheets could become a versatile platform to
sense and deliver different types of signals (i.e., electrical, optical,
thermal, etc.) to neurons and other types of cells in a minimally or
noninvasive manner.
“Although preliminary, the cytocompatibility data reported in this work is also very promising for future use in vivo,”
says Flavia Vitale, associate professor of neurology, bioengineering,
and physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University of
Pennsylvania, who was not involved with this work.
Funding: The research was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the U.S. National Institutes of Health Brain Initiative.
About this neurotech research news
Author: Adam Zewe Source: MIT Contact: Adam Zewe – MIT Image: The image is credited to Pablo Penso and Marta Airaghi
Rahat Jahangir Rony; Shajnush Amir; Nova Ahmed; Samuelson Atiba; Nervo Verdezoto Dias; ValerieSparkes; Katarzyna Stawarz
Abstract
Background:
People who survive a stroke, in many cases require upper-limb rehabilitation(ULR), which plays a vital role in stroke recovery practices. However, rehabilitation services inthe Global South are often not affordable or easily accessible. For example, in Bangladesh, theaccess to and use of rehabilitation services is limited and influenced by cultural factors andpatient’s everyday lives. In addition, while wearable devices have been used to enhance ULRexercises to support self-directed home-based rehabilitation, this has primarily been applied indeveloped regions and is not common in many Global South countries due to potential costs andlimited access to technology.
Objective:
Our goal was to understand better physiotherapists’, patients’ and caregivers’experiences of rehabilitation in Bangladesh, existing rehabilitation practices, and how they differfrom the rehabilitation approach in the United Kingdom (UK). Understanding these differencesand experiences would help to identify opportunities and requirements for developing affordablewearable devices that could support ULR in home settings.
Methods:
We conducted an exploratory study with 14 participants representing key stakeholdergroups. We interviewed physiotherapists and patients in Bangladesh to understand theirapproaches, rehabilitation experiences and challenges, and technology use in this context. We alsointerviewed UK physiotherapists to explore the similarities and differences between the twocountries and identify specific contextual and design requirements for low-cost wearables forULR. Overall, we remotely interviewed 8 physiotherapists (4 in the UK, 4 in Bangladesh), 3 ULRpatients in Bangladesh, and 3 caregivers in Bangladesh. Participants were recruited through formalcommunications and personal contacts. Each interview was conducted online, except for twointerviews, and audio was recorded with consent. A total of 10 hours of discussions weretranscribed. The results were analyzed using thematic analysis.
Results:
We identified several sociocultural factors that affect ULR and should be taken intoaccount when developing technologies for the home: the important role of family who mayinfluence the treatment based on social and cultural perceptions; the impact of gender norms andtheir influence on attitudes towards rehabilitation and physiotherapists; and differences inapproach to rehabilitation between the UK and Bangladesh, with Bangladeshi physiotherapistsfocusing on individual movements that are necessary to build strength in the affected parts, andtheir British counterparts favoring a more holistic approach. We propose practical considerationsand design recommendations for developing ULR devices for low-resource settings.
Conclusions:
Our work shows that while it is possible to build a low-cost wearable device, thedifficulty lies in addressing socio-technical challenges. When developing new health technologies,it is imperative to not only understand how well they could fit into patients’, caregivers’, andphysiotherapists’ everyday lives, but also how they may influence any potential tensionsconcerning culture, religion, and the characteristics of the local healthcare system.
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