THE ROLE OF ROBOTIC REHABILITATION IN CHILDREN WITH NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS

In the last years, traditional treatments have been combined with innovative therapies, such as robot-assisted training, an interesting new rehabilitation tool for children with neurologic impairment. The robots deliver a high dose of training and int ensity, critical factors for the activation of neuronal plasticity. Despite their increasing use, the effectiveness of robotic devices in the rehabilitation process lacks of an overall and shared framework of reference. The analysis of the literature reveals some posit ive aspects of the use of robotics in pediatric rehabilitation and others that are critical

Robotic and clinical evaluation of upper limb motor performance in patients with Friedreich's Ataxia: an observational study

Background: Friedreich’s ataxia (FRDA) is the most common hereditary autosomal recessive form of ataxia. In this disease there is early manifestation of gait ataxia, and dysmetria of the arms and legs which causes impairment in daily activities that require fine manual dexterity. To date there is no cure for this disease. Some novel therapeutic approaches are ongoing in different steps of clinical trial. Development of sensitive outcome measures is crucial to prove therapeutic effectiveness. The aim of the study was to assess the reliability and sensitivity of quantitative and objective assessment of upper limb performance computed by means of the robotic device and to evaluate the correlation with clinical and functional markers of the disease severity. Methods: Here we assess upper limb performances by means of the InMotion Arm Robot, a robot designed for clinical neurological applications, in a cohort of 14 children and young adults affected by FRDA, matched for age and gender with 18 healthy subjects. We focused on the analysis of kinematics, accuracy, smoothness, and submovements of the upper limb while reaching movements were performed. The robotic evaluation of upper limb performance consisted of planar reaching movements performed with the robotic system. The motors of the robot were turned off, so that the device worked as a measurement tool. The status of the disease was scored using the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA). Relationships between robotic indices and a range of clinical and disease characteristics were examined. Results: All our robotic indices were significantly different between the two cohorts except for two, and were highly and reliably discriminative between healthy and subjects with FRDA. In particular, subjects with FRDA exhibited slower movements as well as loss of accuracy and smoothness, which are typical of the disease. Duration of Movement, Normalized Jerk, and Number of Submovements were the best discriminative indices, as they were directly and easily measurable and correlated with the status of the disease, as measured by SARA. Conclusions: Our results suggest that outcome measures obtained by means of robotic devices can improve the sensitivity of clinical evaluations of patients’ dexterity and can accurately and efficiently quantify changes over time in clinical trials, particularly when functional scales appear to be no longer sensitive

Jeux D'échelles. Une Histoire Internationale

International audienceLe livre, paru en 1996 sous la direction de Jacques Revel, a été traduit en Italie en 2006 par les éditions de la Viella sous le titre . Cette occasion a semblé propice à un retour historiographique et épistémologique sur l'expérience microhistorique entre la France et l'Italie. Il s'agit d'entrecroiser les réflexions d'un historien français et d'un philosophe italien, pour chercher à mettre en évidence, à distance, les présupposés théoriques de la microhistoire, et à mesurer les déplacements opérés

L’expérience sublime de la science. Pour une épistémologie de l’infigurable

L’enthousiasme de la découverte Depuis quatre siècles, environ, on sait qu’il n’y a pas de science sans expérience. Le terme même de «science» a depuis lors acquis un autre signification. Elle ne veut plus signifier connaissance tout court, mais seulement un certain type de connaissance, fondée sur la précision du raisonnement et sur l’expérience. L’expérience est le laboratoire de la science. Elle est son empirisme de fond, son empirisme de dernière instance, non seulement comme banc d’essai..

Automated and Flexible Coil Winding Robotic Framework

European electrical machines manufacturers need to increase the flexibility of production process, due to the high cost of equipment setup at the beginning of each new production batch. Overall, most of these European manufacturers are striving to reduce costs while preserving the quality of products, in order to face the competition by Far East companies. There is a strong need for increasing productivity, flexibility and quality. In particular, in wound coils manufacturing process, current technologies allow only to big international manufacturer to automate their production lines, due to high machinery cost and set-up time, while small and medium manufacturers are forced to direct themselves towards manual production. This work aims to reduce costs and increase flexibility with the following contributions: (1) important reduction of setup time and costs of the winding machine, thanks to the simplicity and flexibility of the proposed approach; (2) increase in the quality of the final motors, thanks to the increased amount of copper that the robot will be able to insert in each coil with respect to manual winding; (3) possibility to parallelize the winding operations, dramatically increasing production rate; (4) decreased number of defected cores, thanks to an advanced quality inspection system; (5) reduction of environmental impact of the production process, thanks to a reduction of wasted copper wire

L’expérience sublime de la science. Pour une épistémologie de l’infigurable

L’enthousiasme de la découverte Depuis quatre siècles, environ, on sait qu’il n’y a pas de science sans expérience. Le terme même de «science» a depuis lors acquis un autre signification. Elle ne veut plus signifier connaissance tout court, mais seulement un certain type de connaissance, fondée sur la précision du raisonnement et sur l’expérience. L’expérience est le laboratoire de la science. Elle est son empirisme de fond, son empirisme de dernière instance, non seulement comme banc d’essai..

Diana Napoli, Michel de Certeau. Lo storico “smarrito”

Nessuno può dire con precisione chi fosse intellettualmente Michel de Certeau: uno storico? Un religioso? Uno studioso della mistica? Un epistemologo della storia? Un antropologo? Un appassionato di psicanalisi? Era infatti un po’ tutte queste cose insieme e forse l’appellativo di “studioso” – nel senso proprio e ormai antico del termine – sarebbe probabilmente il modo più adeguato per definirlo. Apprezzato a destra e a sinistra, dai cattolici e dagli atei, dai religiosi e dai laici, la sua f..

Diana Napoli, Michel de Certeau. Lo storico “smarrito”

Nessuno può dire con precisione chi fosse intellettualmente Michel de Certeau: uno storico? Un religioso? Uno studioso della mistica? Un epistemologo della storia? Un antropologo? Un appassionato di psicanalisi? Era infatti un po’ tutte queste cose insieme e forse l’appellativo di “studioso” – nel senso proprio e ormai antico del termine – sarebbe probabilmente il modo più adeguato per definirlo. Apprezzato a destra e a sinistra, dai cattolici e dagli atei, dai religiosi e dai laici, la sua f..

Harm Avoidance and Self-Directedness Characterize Fibromyalgic Patients and the Symptom Severity

AbstractObjective: Evidence in the literature suggests peculiar personality traits for fibromyalgic patients, and it has been suggested that personality characteristics may be involved in patients' different symptomatic events and responses to treatment. The aim of the study is to investigate the personality characteristics of Italian FM patients and to explore the possibility of clustering them considering both personality traits and clinical characteristics.Design: The study used a cross-sectional methodology and involved a control group. A self-assessment procedure was used for data gathering. The study included 87 female FM patients and 83 healthy females. Patients were approached and interviewed in person during a psychiatric consultation. Healthy people were recruited from general practices with previous telephone contact.Main Outcome Measures: Participants responded to the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI), the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) and the Short-Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36).Results: FM patients scored significantly different from healthy participants on the Harm-Avoidance (HA), Novelty Seeking (NS) and Self-Directedness (SD). Two clusters were identified: patients in Cluster 1 (n=37) had higher scores on HA and lower scores on RD, SD and Cooperativeness and reported more serious fibromyalgia and more severe anxious-depressive symptomatology than did patients in Cluster 2 (n=46).Conclusion: This study confirms the presence of certain personality traits in the FM population. In particular, high levels of Harm Avoidance and low levels of Self-Directedness characterize a subgroup of FM patients with more severe anxious-depressive symptomatology. According to these findings, personality assessment could be useful in the diagnostic process to tailor therapeutic interventions to the personality characteristics