Development of a Virtual Reality Tool for Respiratory Rehabilitation

Respiratory rehabilitation plays an important role in the management of respiratory complications after spinal cord injury. Abundant evidence supports the need for respiratory rehabilitation as a treatment for respiratory insufficiency and many other breathing conditions, having a huge impact on the physical, mental, social and laboral capacity of each patient. An exhaustive analysis of current systems for respiratory rehabilitation led us to detect some gaps and needs related to that, such as the old-fashionism of devices and, in particular, their low engagement strength. This project introduces a novel, patient-specific and easy-to-use tool for respiratory rehabilitation. We developed a custom respiratory training application, called RespiTrainer, consisting of five entertaining 2D games which are successfully combined with an innovative airflow sensing approach based on a microphone. A total of twelve healthy volunteers participated in the validation of the solution, which consisted of conducting a first conventional inspiratory and expiratory respiratory training, followed by a session with RespiTrainer. Volunteers responded to two questionnaires regarding their experience and the usability of both systems. Results showed a significant increase in the system usability score (SUS) when using our custom application. Participants felt slightly more tired after training with RespiTrainer than with the conventional system (Borg scale). All subjects felt the game was significantly much more entertaining and motivating than conventional training. Hence, we gathered preliminary evidence as to the practicability and feasibility of this solution to conduct respiratory training and improve patient satisfaction and further adherence

Cuadrados latinos y grafos de Moore

Bajo el título Cuadrados latinos y grafos de Moore se esconden dos campos de la matemática bastante peculiares. Por un lado los cuadrados latinos, tan viejos casi como la antigua Grecia y a su vez tan poco estudiados que la mayor parte de los libros de combinatoria los mencionan solamente para destacar sus aplicaciones en el diseño de experimentos. Y por otro lado, los grafos de Moore, una clase tan particular de grafo que puede que sólo haya tres, y de los cuales se conocen dos, resistiéndose el tercero a ser hallado debido a su gran tamaño