Fixation instruction influences gaze cueing

Studies have shown that perceiving another person's gaze shift facilitates responses in the direction of the perceived gaze shift. While it is often assumed that participants in these experiments remain fixated on the cue in the cueing interval, eye gaze is not always recorded to confirm this. The data presented here suggest that the effect of gaze cues on responses to peripheral targets depends on whether participants make eye movements prior to the onset of the target. Participants who were required to fixate showed cueing effects at short cue-target intervals, but no cueing at later intervals. Participants who could look around, often chose to do so, and showed the same positive cueing effects at the shorter interval, but negative cueing effects (suggestive of inhibition of return) at the longer interval

The structure of frontoparallel haptic space is task dependent

In three experiments, we investigated the structure of frontoparallel haptic space. In the first experiment, we asked blindfolded participants to rotate a matching bar so that it felt parallel to the reference bar, the bars could be at various positions in the frontoparallel plane. Large systematic errors were observed, in which orientations that were perceived to be parallel were not physically parallel. In two subsequent experiments, we investigated the origin of these errors. In Experiment 2, we asked participants to verbally report the orientation of haptically presented bars. In this task, participants made errors that were considerably smaller than those made in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, we asked participants to set bars in a verbally instructed orientation, and they also made errors significantly smaller than those observed in Experiment 1. The data suggest that the errors in the matching task originate from the transfer of the reference orientation to the matching-bar position

Exploring Patterns of Activities of Daily Living in the Home Environment

Background: Senior citizens tend to live longer and longer independently. Judging whether a senior person is still capable of living on his own is often based on the occurrence of incidents, with all consequences thereof. In the specific case of early dementia, the symptoms are not immediately apparent and the occurrence and severity of incidents progress gradually over time. In this case, the children or grandchildren are burdened by the question whether or not the elderly adult can still live safely and independently in his or her own home. This decision is only based on input obtained through incidental visits. We believe that the capability of independent living can only be objectively judged, by a health professional, if long term objective information on the elderly person's daily activities of living (ADL) is available

Neurophysiological methods for the assessment of spasticity: the Hoffmann reflex, the tendon reflex, and the stretch reflex

Purpose: To review the literature concerning neurophysiological methods to assess spasticity with respect to mechanisms and methodology, and to describe the three most commonly used methods: the Hoffmann reflex (H-reflex), the Tendon reflex (T-reflex), and the Stretch Reflex (SR).\ud Method: A systematic internet database search was performed to identify neurophysiological measurement methods of spasticity. A systematic exclusion procedure resulted in 185 included references, completed by additional informal search. For this paper, information about the H-, T- and stretch reflexes was extracted from these references. \ud Results: Although the reflexes are basically monosynaptic, there are many supraspinal pathways which modulate the responses in terms of their amplitude and latency. As a consequence the methods are sensitive to a considerable number of experimental conditions and are characterized by a moderate reliability and sensitivity. Correlations with other (i.e. biomechanical, neurophysiological or clinical) spasticity assessment parameters are moderate to poor. Standardised and broadly accepted protocols are still largely lacking preventing an effective exchange of knowledge. \ud Conclusions: The clinical and experimental use of the three methods is restricted due to moderate reliability and sensitivity. It is recommended to perform combined neurophysiological – biomechanical assessment of spasticity during active, functional movement

Telemonitoring of daily activity and symptom behavior in patients with COPD

Objectives. This study investigated the activity behavior of patients with COPD in detail compared to asymptomatic controls, and the relationship between subjective and objective activities (awareness), and readiness to change activity behavior. Methods. Thirty-nine patients with COPD (66.0 years; FEV(1)% predicted: 44.9%) and 21 healthy controls (57.0 years) participated. Objective daily activity was assessed by accelerometry and expressed as amount of activity in counts per minute (cpm). Patients' baseline subjective activity and stage of change were assessed prior to measurements. Results. Mean daily activity in COPD patients was significantly lower compared to the healthy controls (864 ± 277 cpm versus 1162 ± 282 cpm, P < 0.001). COPD patients showed a temporary decrease in objective activities in the early afternoon. Objective and subjective activities were significantly moderately related and most patients (55.3%) were in the maintenance phase of the stages of change. Conclusions. COPD patients show a distinctive activity decrease in the early afternoon. COPD patients are moderately aware of their daily activity but regard themselves as physically active. Therefore, future telemedicine interventions might consider creating awareness of an active lifestyle and provide feedback that aims to increase and balance activity levels

Biosignal and context monitoring: Distributed multimedia applications of body area networks in healthcare

We are investigating the use of Body Area Networks (BANs), wearable sensors and wireless communications for measuring, processing, transmission, interpretation and display of biosignals. The goal is to provide telemonitoring and teletreatment services for patients. The remote health professional can view a multimedia display which includes graphical and numerical representation of patients’ biosignals. Addition of feedback-control enables teletreatment services; teletreatment can be delivered to the patient via multiple modalities including tactile, text, auditory and visual. We describe the health BAN and a generic mobile health service platform and two context aware applications. The epilepsy application illustrates processing and interpretation of multi-source, multimedia BAN data. The chronic pain application illustrates multi-modal feedback and treatment, with patients able to view their own biosignals on their handheld device

Surface exclusion and molecular mobility may explain Vroman effects in protein adsorption

Data on protein adsorption usually show that for increasing surface coverage the adsorption velocity decreases much faster than linearly. This contrasts to the classical Langmuir model with an adsorption velocity proportional to the number of unoccupied binding sites. It has been shown that this non-linearity may explain phenomena like transient adsorption of different proteins from a protein mixture or dilution-dependent changes in binding properties, collectively called Vroman effects. However, the molecular mechanisms explaining this non-linear behavior remain to be established. A Monte Carlo simulation model is presented that incorporates steric hindrance, lateral mobility and mutual interactions of adsorbed molecules. Experimental data on the adsorption kinetics of prothrombin and annexin V, a recently discovered anticoagulant protein, at phospholipid bilayers are analyzed with this model. A major conclusion is that the steep decline in adsorption rates for increasing surface coverage can be explained, without assuming repulsive forces between adsorbed molecules, as a surface exclusion effect combined with lateral mobility of adsorbed molecules. The fact that annexin V shows this effect to a much lesser degree than prothrombin is tentatively explained by clustering of adsorbed annexin V molecules. A qualitative effect of lateral mobility on the adsorption characteristics, predicted by the model, is confirmed in experiments in which the fluidity of the bilayers was manipulated

Game preferences and personality of older adult users

To improve engagement needed for long-term adherence to telemedicine services for elderly users, we need methods to design effective and tailored gamification. This study explores the relation between personality (based on the Five Factor Model) and game preference (based on the Five Domains of Play theory) to enable creation of such a method, by means of a user classification targeting the older adult user. From preliminary results, in a study with 12 participants aged 65-75 years, we observe no significant correlations between personality and game preference. The participants have a strong preference for a game containing novel content. This study provides us with information on the older adult to create a method for developing tailored gamified content based on game preferences