Markerless Vision-Based Skeleton Tracking in Therapy of Gross Motor Skill Disorders in Children

This chapter presents a research towards implementation of a computer vision system for markerless skeleton tracking in therapy of gross motor skill disorders in children suffering from mild cognitive impairment. The proposed system is based on a low-cost 3D sensor and a skeleton tracking software. The envisioned architecture is scalable in the sense that the system may be used as a stand-alone assistive tool for tracking the effects of therapy or it may be integrated with an advanced autonomous conversational agent to maintain the spatial attention of the child and to increase her motivation to undergo a long-term therapy

The impact of visual impairment on nutritional status: A systematic review

The aim of this review was to evaluate the literature that has investigated the impact of visual impairment on nutritional status. We identified relevant articles through a multi-staged systematic approach. Fourteen articles were identified as meeting the inclusion criteria. The sample size of the studies ranged from 9 to 761 participants. It was found that visual impairment significantly affects nutritional status. The studies reported that visually impaired people have an abnormal body mass index (BMI); a higher prevalence of obesity and malnutrition was reported. Visually impaired people find it difficult to shop for, eat, and prepare meals. Most studies had a small sample size, and some studies did not include a study control group for comparison. The limitations of these studies suggest that the findings are not conclusive enough to hold true for only those who are visually impaired. Further studies with a larger sample size are required with the aim of developing interventions

Virtual Reality Games for Motor Rehabilitation

This paper presents a fuzzy logic based method to track user satisfaction without the need for devices to monitor users physiological conditions. User satisfaction is the key to any product’s acceptance; computer applications and video games provide a unique opportunity to provide a tailored environment for each user to better suit their needs. We have implemented a non-adaptive fuzzy logic model of emotion, based on the emotional component of the Fuzzy Logic Adaptive Model of Emotion (FLAME) proposed by El-Nasr, to estimate player emotion in UnrealTournament 2004. In this paper we describe the implementation of this system and present the results of one of several play tests. Our research contradicts the current literature that suggests physiological measurements are needed. We show that it is possible to use a software only method to estimate user emotion

Empowering and assisting natural human mobility: The simbiosis walker

This paper presents the complete development of the Simbiosis Smart Walker. The device is equipped with a set of sensor subsystems to acquire user-machine interaction forces and the temporal evolution of user's feet during gait. The authors present an adaptive filtering technique used for the identification and separation of different components found on the human-machine interaction forces. This technique allowed isolating the components related with the navigational commands and developing a Fuzzy logic controller to guide the device. The Smart Walker was clinically validated at the Spinal Cord Injury Hospital of Toledo - Spain, presenting great acceptability by spinal chord injury patients and clinical staf

Assessing Self-Rehabilitation Strategies for the Visually Impaired in Denmark

Self-rehabilitation technology has been developed to reduce healthcare costs and provide a convenient, reliable method for patients to recover from a physical injury. Sponsored by the Danish Association of the Blind, the following report summarizes a project exploring self-rehabilitation technologies that can accommodate blind or visually impaired patients. Potential strategies to increase awareness of such devices throughout municipalities in Denmark were evaluated as well. The data collected in this project were used to recommend that the Danish Association of the Blind advocates for further development of several rehabilitation technologies and the education of healthcare professionals about these technologies throughout Danish municipalities