Positive Technology Journal

Effects of electromyography biofeedback-assisted relaxation on pain in patients with advanced cancer in a palliative care unit.

Cancer Nurs. 2007 Sep-Oct;30(5):347-53

Authors: Tsai PS, Chen PL, Lai YL, Lee MB, Lin CC

Most patients with advanced cancer experience pain. However, many cancer patients do not find satisfaction with conventional treatment of pain relief. This study examined the effect of electromyography (EMG) biofeedback-assisted relaxation on cancer-related pain in advanced cancer patients. We hypothesized that changes in EMG activity in frontal muscles underlie the efficacy of EMG biofeedback-assisted relaxation. This was a randomized control study. The experimental group (n = 12) received 6 EMG biofeedback-assisted relaxation sessions over a 4-week period, whereas the control group (n = 12) received conventional care. The primary efficacy measure was the level of pain, measured by the Brief Pain Inventory. Findings from this study show that relaxation training supplemented with visual and auditory EMG biofeedback signals is effective in reducing cancer-related pain in advanced cancer patients, possibly through a mechanism of attenuation of physiological arousal. Electromyography biofeedback-assisted relaxation training may be used along with medications for effective pain management in patients with advanced cancer.

From Robot.net

According to a Reuters report, Japanese senior citizens quickly become bored with the simple robots so far introduced into nursing homes:

"The residents liked ifbot for about a month before they lost interest. Stuffed animals are more popular." Ifbot is a small robot that can converse, sing, express emotions, and even present trivia quizzes to senior citizens. According to the article the robot has spent most of the past year sitting in a corner, unused. Another robot, Hopis, that looked like a furry pink dog has gone out of production due to poor sales. Hopis was designed to monitor blood sugar, blood pressue, and body temperature. One problem may be that both robots are little more than advanced toys. Neither can help elderly people with day-to-day problems they face such as getting around their house, reading small print, or taking a bath. The elderly have found utilitarian improvements in existing devices more useful: height-adjustable countertops or extra-big control buttons on household gadgets. Whether seniors will find robots that can help with their utilitarian needs more to their liking than fluffy pupbots that sing remains to be seen"

Virtual Reality Applications in Improving Postural Control and Minimizing Falls.

Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2006;1(1):2694-2697

Authors: McConville KV, Virk S

Maintaining balance under all conditions is an absolute requirement for humans. Orientation in space and balance maintenance requires inputs from the vestibular, the visual, the proprioceptive and the somatosensory systems. All the cues coming from these systems are integrated by the central nervous system (CNS) to employ different strategies for orientation and balance. How the CNS integrates all the inputs and makes cognitive decisions about balance strategies has been an area of interest for biomedical engineers for a long time. More interesting is the fact that in the absence of one or more cues, or when the input from one of the sensors is skewed, the CNS "adapts" to the new environment and gives less weight to the conflicting inputs [1]. The focus of this paper is a review of different strategies and models put forward by researchers to explain the integration of these sensory cues. Also, the paper compares the different approaches used by young and old adults in maintaining balance. Since with age the musculoskeletal, visual and vestibular system deteriorates, the older subjects have to compensate for these impaired sensory cues for postural stability. The paper also discusses the applications of virtual reality in rehabilitation programs not only for balance in the elderly but also in occupational falls. Virtual reality has profound applications in the field of balance rehabilitation and training because of its relatively low cost. Studies will be conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual reality training in modifying the head and eye movement strategies, and determine the role of these responses in the maintenance of balance.

Via Mobile Technology 

The Quebec-based company Myca has launched a new website that allows users with camera-equipped mobile phones to snap pictures of their meals, send directly to the nutritionist, and get instant feedback. The cost of the service is $10 per month. 

Via KurzweilAI.net 

Researchers at Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology, have developed a virtual reality system to enable people suffering from Multiple Sclerosis to walk more effectively.

The system is composed of two main components - a sensory element that measures the movement of the body and a small screen attached to the patient's eyeglasses. The patient sees a virtual floor moving beneath him as he walks, which helps him to remain stable and improve his walking abilities.

Read the full story

Roland Piquepaille reports that "An international team of European researchers has implanted an artificial cerebellum - the portion of the brain that controls motor functions - inside a robotic system. This EU-funded project is dubbed SENSOPAC, an acronym for "SENSOrimotor structuring of perception and action for emerging cognition". One of the goals of this project is to design robots able to interact with humans in a natural way. This project, which should be completed at the end of 2009, also wants to produce robots which would act as home-helpers for disabled people, such as persons affected by neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's disease."

SENSOPAC website 

Via Textually.org 

C/net reports that BT is developing services that will enable users of virtual worlds to call or text out to their colleagues and friends in the real world. "To test the technology it has built a private island in Second Life, which it has dubbed Area 21 - a play on the ultra-secret Area 51 and BT's 21CN network technology, which is being used in the service"

Virtual reality for the psychophysiological assessment of phobic fear: Responses during virtual tunnel driving.

Psychol Assess. 2007 Sep;19(3):340-6

Authors: Mühlberger A, Bülthoff HH, Wiedemann G, Pauli P

Developing a Telepresence Robot for Interpersonal Communication with the Elderly in a Home Environment.

Telemed J E Health. 2007 Aug;13(4):407-424

Authors: Tsai TC, Hsu YL, Ma AI, King T, Wu CH

"Telepresence" is an interesting field that includes virtual reality implementations with human-system interfaces, communication technologies, and robotics. This paper describes the development of a telepresence robot called Telepresence Robot for Interpersonal Communication (TRIC) for the purpose of interpersonal communication with the elderly in a home environment. The main aim behind TRIC's development is to allow elderly populations to remain in their home environments, while loved ones and caregivers are able to maintain a higher level of communication and monitoring than via traditional methods. TRIC aims to be a low-cost, lightweight robot, which can be easily implemented in the home environment. Under this goal, decisions on the design elements included are discussed. In particular, the implementation of key autonomous behaviors in TRIC to increase the user's capability of projection of self and operation of the telepresence robot, in addition to increasing the interactive capability of the participant as a dialogist are emphasized. The technical development and integration of the modules in TRIC, as well as human factors considerations are then described. Preliminary functional tests show that new users were able to effectively navigate TRIC and easily locate visual targets. Finally the future developments of TRIC, especially the possibility of using TRIC for home tele-health monitoring and tele-homecare visits are discussed.

Visuo-motor learning with combination of different rates of motor imagery and physical practice.

Exp Brain Res. 2007 Sep 12;

Authors: Allami N, Paulignan Y, Brovelli A, Boussaoud D

Sports psychology suggests that mental rehearsal facilitates physical practice in athletes and clinical rehabilitation attempts to use mental rehearsal to restore motor function in hemiplegic patients. Our aim was to examine whether mental rehearsal is equivalent to physical learning, and to determine the optimal proportions of real execution and rehearsal. Subjects were asked to grasp an object and insert it into an adapted slot. One group (G0) practiced the task only by physical execution (240 trials); three groups imagined performing the task in different rates of trials (25%, G25; 50%, G50; 75%, G75), and physically executed movements for the remaining trials; a fourth, control group imagined a visual rotation task in 75% of the trials and then performed the same motor task as the others groups. Movement time (MT) was compared for the first and last physical trials, together with other key trials, across groups. All groups learned, suggesting that mental rehearsal is equivalent to physical motor learning. More importantly, when subjects rehearsed the task for large numbers of trials (G50 and G75), the MT of the first executed trial was significantly shorter than the first executed trial in the physical group (G0), indicating that mental practice is better than no practice at all. Comparison of the first executed trial in G25, G50 and G75 with the corresponding trials in G0 (61, 121 and 181 trials), showed equivalence between mental and physical practice. At the end of training, the performance was much better with high rates of mental practice (G50/G75) compared to physical practice alone (G0), especially when the task was difficult. These findings confirm that mental rehearsal can be beneficial for motor learning and suggest that imagery might be used to supplement or partly replace physical practice in clinical rehabilitation.

LabforCulture is "a tool for everyone in arts and culture who creates, collaborates, shares and produces across borders in Europe"

This website can help artists to find out how to get funding for their project, initiative or organisation.  Artists can learn about mobility schemes, support from foundations, corporate sponsorship, alternative sources of funding and philanthropy

A new mechanical arm trainer to intensify the upper limb rehabilitation of severely affected patients after stroke: design, concept and first case series.

Eura Medicophys. 2007 Sep 10;

Authors: Hesse S, Schmidt H, Werner C, Rybski C, Puzich U, Bardeleben A

Description and case series on a new mechanical arm trainer with three degrees of freedom (DoF), the REHA-SLIDE (RS), for stroke rehabilitation are presented. Similar to a rolling pin, it consists of two handles at either side of a connecting rod, the handles are bilaterally moved forward and backward, sideways, and rotated, the base plate is inclinable. A computer mouse attached to the rod enables playing games offering computer-biofeedback. Two patients, 6 and 5 weeks after a first-time supratentorial stroke, suffering from a flaccid non-functional upper extremity have been studied. Interventions performed were additional 30 min of RS-training every workday for 6 weeks; one session included 400 repetitions evenly distributed between the forward backward movement and drawing a circle clock- and counter clockwise. Afterwards the patients could play games. Upper extremity portion of the Fugl-Meyer Motor Assessment Score (FM, 0-66), and muscle strength by a Medical Research Council (MRC) sum score (0-45), the FM assessment was blinded. In the 2 patients, the FM (0-66) improved from 7 to 37, and from 17 to 43, their initial (terminal) MRC sum scores were 6 (36) and 13 (31). With the REHA-Slide (RS), severely affected patients practiced a bilateral 3 DoF movement. No conclusions can be drawn so far and a controlled clinical study must be the next step.

the new version of Google Earth includes a hidden Flight Simulator

Ubikwitus has posted today a list of tips to make your flying better:

have a look to these gorgeous pictures taken around the world by photographer Toby C.

there is also a blog

Via SharpBrains 

MindFit is a software-based assessment and training program for 14 cognitive skills important for healthy aging. The software is recommended for people over 50 who want a novel and varied mental workout. The program has 21 exercises that train 14 cognitive skills.

MindFit was recently launched by Susan Greenfield, one of Britain's best-known neuroscientists

Link to BBC report

Via Medgadget 

Bill Scott has developed a technique that allows to transform brain waves into computer generated graphics. His website has several images created by this tool.

From Bill Scott's site:

Via Textually.org

Trusted Reviews reveals some new details about the PlayStation branded Sony Ericsson mobile phone

   

 

MORANGE is a mobile application software that works on J2ME MIDP2.0 phones. It provides a number of features, including push email, mobile social network, remote desktop access, push RSS, instant messaging, and even remote camera access from mobile - users can instantly view IP/WIFI cameras or Webcams, directly from their mobile device

It supports any Internet protocol (IP)-based wireless data networks, such as GPRS, CDMA, 3G and WIFI (802.11) and the upcoming WiMAX.

check it out

Science has an interesting article by William Sims Bainbridge on the role that virtual worlds can play in the social sciences

Online virtual worlds, electronic environments where people can work and interact in a somewhat realistic manner, have great potential as sites for research in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, as well as in human-centered computer science. This article uses Second Life and World of Warcraft as two very different examples of current virtual worlds that foreshadow future developments, introducing a number of research methodologies that scientists are now exploring, including formal experimentation, observational ethnography, and quantitative analysis of economic markets or social networks.