Advances in wearable technology and applications in physical medicine and rehabilitation

The development of miniature sensors that can be unobtrusively attached to the body or can be part of clothing items, such as sensing elements embedded in the fabric of garments, have opened countless possibilities of monitoring patients in the field over extended periods of time. This is of particular relevance to the practice of physical medicine and rehabilitation. Wearable technology addresses a major question in the management of patients undergoing rehabilitation, i.e. have clinical interventions a significant impact on the real life of patients? Wearable technology allows clinicians to gather data where it matters the most to answer this question, i.e. the home and community settings. Direct observations concerning the impact of clinical interventions on mobility, level of independence, and quality of life can be performed by means of wearable systems. Researchers have focused on three main areas of work to develop tools of clinical interest: 1)the design and implementation of sensors that are minimally obtrusive and reliably record movement or physiological signals, 2)the development of systems that unobtrusively gather data from multiple wearable sensors and deliver this information to clinicians in the way that is most appropriate for each application, and 3)the design and implementation of algorithms to extract clinically relevant information from data recorded using wearable technology. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation has devoted a series of articles to this topic with the objective of offering a description of the state of the art in this research field and pointing to emerging applications that are relevant to the clinical practice in physical medicine and rehabilitation

JNER: a forum to discuss how neuroscience and biomedical engineering are reshaping physical medicine & rehabilitation

Advances in neuroscience and biomedical engineering deeply affect the clinical practice of physical medicine & rehabilitation. New research findings and engineering tools are continuously made available that have the potential of dramatically enhancing the ability of clinicians to design effective rehabilitation interventions. This quickly evolving research field is difficult to track because related literature appears in a wide range of scientific journals. There is a need for a scientific journal that offers to its readership a forum at the intersection of neuroscience, biomedical engineering, and physical medicine & rehabilitation. The Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation (JNER) is intended to fill this gap and foster cross-fertilizations among these disciplines. By making readily available to clinicians selected studies with potential impact on physical medicine & rehabilitation, JNER is anticipated to foster the development of novel and more effective rehabilitation strategies. Conversely, by presenting clinical problems to a readership of neuroscientists and engineers, JNER is expected to generate innovative work in neuroscience and biomedical engineering with future applications to physical medicine & rehabilitation. JNER will leverage on Open Access as a means to guarantee that its content is readily available to scientists, clinicians, and the general public thus promoting scientific and technological advances that are relevant to rehabilitation. JNER is an Open Access initiative. Open Access assures dissemination to the widest possible audience and is seen by many as essential for publicly funded research. BioMed Central offers an outstanding platform to make JNER possible and allow neuroscientists, biomedical engineers, and clinicians to see their work published in a timely manner and thus make an immediate impact in the field of rehabilitation. JNER will focus on innovative work with higher likelihood of a dramatic impact on rehabilitation. Thus, priority will be given to outstanding and visionary scientific reports, i.e. those proposing exceptionally innovative concepts with great potential in the field

Handle Anywhere: A Mobile Robot Arm for Providing Bodily Support to Elderly Persons

Age-related loss of mobility and increased risk of falling remain important obstacles toward facilitating aging-in-place. Many elderly people lack the coordination and strength necessary to perform common movements around their home, such as getting out of bed or stepping into a bathtub. The traditional solution has been to install grab bars on various surfaces; however, these are often not placed in optimal locations due to feasibility constraints in room layout. In this paper, we present a mobile robot that provides an older adult with a handle anywhere in space - "handle anywhere". The robot consists of an omnidirectional mobile base attached to a repositionable handle. We analyze the postural changes in four activities of daily living and determine, in each, the body pose that requires the maximal muscle effort. Using a simple model of the human body, we develop a methodology to optimally place the handle to provide the maximum support for the elderly person at the point of most effort. Our model is validated with experimental trials. We discuss how the robotic device could be used to enhance patient mobility and reduce the incidence of falls.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Aberration cancellation in quantum interferometry

We report the first experimental demonstration of even-order aberration cancellation in quantum interferometry. The effect is a spatial counterpart of the spectral group velocity dispersion cancellation, which is associated with spectral entanglement. It is manifested in temporal interferometry by virtue of the multi-parameter spatial-spectral entanglement. Spatially-entangled photons, generated by spontaneous parametric down conversion, were subjected to spatial aberrations introduced by a deformable mirror that modulates the wavefront. We show that only odd-order spatial aberrations affect the quality of quantum interference

Phase control of a longitudinal momentum entangled photon state by a deformable membrane mirror

We propose a paradigmatic demonstration of the potentialities of a deformable mirror for closed-loop control of a two-photon momentum-entangled state, subject to phase fluctuations. A custom-made membrane mirror is used to set a relative phase shift between the arms of an interferometric apparatus. The control algorithm estimates the phase of the quantum state, by measurements of the coincidence events at the output ports of the interferometer, and uses the measurements results to provide a feedback signal to the deformable mirror. Stabilization of the coincidence rate to within 1.5 standard deviation of the Poissonian noise is demonstrated over 2000 seconds.Comment: RevTex, 6 page

Using hierarchical clustering methods to classify motor activities of COPD patients from wearable sensor data

BACKGROUND: Advances in miniature sensor technology have led to the development of wearable systems that allow one to monitor motor activities in the field. A variety of classifiers have been proposed in the past, but little has been done toward developing systematic approaches to assess the feasibility of discriminating the motor tasks of interest and to guide the choice of the classifier architecture. METHODS: A technique is introduced to address this problem according to a hierarchical framework and its use is demonstrated for the application of detecting motor activities in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) undergoing pulmonary rehabilitation. Accelerometers were used to collect data for 10 different classes of activity. Features were extracted to capture essential properties of the data set and reduce the dimensionality of the problem at hand. Cluster measures were utilized to find natural groupings in the data set and then construct a hierarchy of the relationships between clusters to guide the process of merging clusters that are too similar to distinguish reliably. It provides a means to assess whether the benefits of merging for performance of a classifier outweigh the loss of resolution incurred through merging. RESULTS: Analysis of the COPD data set demonstrated that motor tasks related to ambulation can be reliably discriminated from tasks performed in a seated position with the legs in motion or stationary using two features derived from one accelerometer. Classifying motor tasks within the category of activities related to ambulation requires more advanced techniques. While in certain cases all the tasks could be accurately classified, in others merging clusters associated with different motor tasks was necessary. When merging clusters, it was found that the proposed method could lead to more than 12% improvement in classifier accuracy while retaining resolution of 4 tasks. CONCLUSION: Hierarchical clustering methods are relevant to developing classifiers of motor activities from data recorded using wearable systems. They allow users to assess feasibility of a classification problem and choose architectures that maximize accuracy. By relying on this approach, the clinical importance of discriminating motor tasks can be easily taken into consideration while designing the classifier

Characterization of ankle function during stair ambulation

The aim of this study was to examine the ankle joint during level walking, stair ascent, and stair descent to determine models for use in the design of prosthetic and orthotic systems. Ten healthy subjects were asked to walk (1) across a level walkway, (2) up, and (3) down an instrumented stairway. Sagittal plane kinematic and kinetic data were analyzed to obtain ankle biomechanics during the stance phase of each task. Each stance phase was broken down into sub-phases based on the power trajectory. The ideal model was taken to be the simplest combination of mechanical elements (springs, dampers, and torque actuators) that could reproduce the patterns observed in ankle biomechanics. Besides, we studied the transitions from level walking to stair ascent and from stair descent to level walking and showed that mechanical elements can be used to model these transitions as well. These results are promising to the design of next generation ankle orthotic and prosthetic systems because they show that relatively simple mechanical elements can be utilized to mimic ankle biomechanics

Language-Grounded Control for Coordinated Robot Motion and Speech

Recent advancements have enabled human-robot collaboration through physical assistance and verbal guidance. However, limitations persist in coordinating robots' physical motions and speech in response to real-time changes in human behavior during collaborative contact tasks. We first derive principles from analyzing physical therapists' movements and speech during patient exercises. These principles are translated into control objectives to: 1) guide users through trajectories, 2) control motion and speech pace to align completion times with varying user cooperation, and 3) dynamically paraphrase speech along the trajectory. We then propose a Language Controller that synchronizes motion and speech, modulating both based on user cooperation. Experiments with 12 users show the Language Controller successfully aligns motion and speech compared to baselines. This provides a framework for fluent human-robot collaboration.Comment: Under review in ICRA 202

On the development of a façade-integrated solar water storage

The integration of active solar thermal technologies into building envelopes has recently received a rising attention, promoted within international projects as IEA Task 56 or Cost Action 1403. Although the façade integration of solar thermal collectors is a long debated topic, less attention is paid to the building integration of solar water storages. The scope of the paper is to highlight the main barriers experienced in the development of a façade-integrated solar water storage. This activity is a part of the SunRise project that aims to develop new unitized curtain wall element for tertiary office buildings. The façade element integrates a complete solar thermal system consisting of a solar collector, a hot water storage, a radiant panel and all the required operation components. A mock-up of the solar facade is manufactured to identify practical constructive issues. The thermal behaviour of the tank is analysed through FEM simulations and laboratory tests