Technical Devices

Technology as a tool in OT

vheller — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:34:45 +0100

I am incredibly excited at the prospect of research in to the use of the Wii to assist stroke survivors in re-learning movement. What a great example of our need as therapists to move with the times and exploit modern technology to engage clients in meaningful, therapeutic activities. I can just visualise Mrs Jones extending her shoulder back, flexing her hip and knee and going in for that killer ‘virtual’ strike!!!!!

Kill the robots! They will be taking our Jobs!!

willwade — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 23:31:59 +0100

Pesky robots! Well how about this. Two stories have been released today featuring robots trying to do the role of a OT/PT.
The first is a robot designed to assist mobility more than anything else it seems.

""We came up with the idea of a walking and balance-training device," Brown said, and the trio formed the company, Chicago PT, in Evanston, to build the robots.

The beauty of the robot is its ability to catch a person undergoing physical rehabilitation before he or she falls, yet give him enough freedom to make progress, Brown said.

The patient straps himself into the robot as a sort of skeletal frame. The robot's main frame, or buggy, is wired with sensors that send feedback to the machine's wheels. Based on that feedback, the wheels' velocity and direction adjust to let the person move freely.

The robot's harness can catch the person's fall, and help lift the person's weight.

A torso mechanism, which attaches to the chest and back, allows the patient to reach up, forward or sideways, or it can be made rigid to ensure that the patient stands upright.

"The patient can walk around, and try sophisticated balancing and walking tasks with the aid of a helper," Brown said"

Sounds ruddy scary if you ask me! See more here

The second, called "Pearl" (grooan - I dare say a geek named it after Perl - the programming language) is looking at more social aspects..

"The goal of the NurseBot project is to develop mobile, personal service robots that assist elderly people suffering from chronic disorders in their everyday life. "Pearl", the NurseBot is an autonomous mobile robot that "lives" in a private home of a chronically ill elderly person. The robot provides a research platform to test out a range of ideas for assisting elderly people, such as: What would you like to have a robot help out with around the house?"

See more here [medgadget].

Interesting ideas - and although in early days of development we may well be seeing this kind of thing in a home near you soon.... well ok, honestly I very much doubt it.

Web roundup for the week ending 11/09/05

willwade — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 20:13:25 +0100

To save all the numerous posts here is a quick roundup of OT-ish related stuff seen around the web over the past week (or so*)..

Audiosensor turns your table into an AV controller
"In our never-ending quest to find products that will allow us to use fewer and fewer muscles, we’ve come up with the Audiosensor from Tona Interactive. Set the device on a hard surface and it picks up your “acoustic audio signals” (i.e. tapping and rubbing) created by hand movements on the surface. It then translates those signals into remote control programming commands that adjust audio, video, and other electronic components for volume, channel, etc." crazy.

Backpack that generates its own electricity
I've seen a few clever backpacks around including those that are coming to market that have solar panels built in. This rather natty idea is perhaps a bit more useful to us British where sun is can be a little scanty (particularly during cricket matches it seems) Im wondering if technology like this may one day become a way of powering battery hungry (and heavy) e-aids

The Remedi-Hand
"Scientists have developed a new ultra-light limb that can mimic the movement in a real hand better than any currently available.....The new hand, called the 'Southampton Remedi-Hand', can be connected to muscles in the arm via a small processing unit and is controlled by small contractions of the muscles which move the wrist"

Exubera Inhaled Insulin
"Inhaled insulin called Exubera, could help diabetics who are reluctant to take injections"

Baby watcher
Although just a design idea at the moment, this device will hopefully "inform the caretaker about how much a child normally cries, it tells what to do when the child won't stop crying, and if shaken hard, it calls a doctor or parent using SMS."

fun way to fight fat
A rather funky but pricey way of exercising by linking a cycling machine up with a playstation xbox or net. What's wrong with a skipping rope?

Electrical Exercise System for Quadriplegics
"UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) reports that University of Glasgow engineers have devised an exercise system for quadriplegics, people who are paralyzed from the neck down"

Thudguard Baby Helmet
Seems an interesting idea to protect kids bonces.. Nice touch with the ears too :)

*I have been slack - I meant to post these individually as they came to me but I haven't had time.... so these are actually from the past month!

ICT & OT (plus input devices.. )

willwade — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 22:35:06 +0100

This ICT/SENIT game is new to me so I have been catching up by reading truck loads of material over the last 5 weeks, the results of which I will hopefully be posting up here at some point in the near future.
Much of the websites that I have been looking at can be found in the del.icio.us feed under ICT or something similar - I'll keep adding to it as I go. In essence the field is big with lots of interesting areas - and I have to say still lots of scope for OT to play a bigger role than what is already out there..

Since it seems relevant I thought I would quickly mention a few bits I've seen mentioned elsewhere on the net over the past few weeks..
These two input devices seem interesting and possibly useful for areas where they haven't been particularly designed for..

Septambic Keyboard: apart from a nice little how-to guide in pictures of how to make a splint (!) the site is giving away the source code to the project - perhaps handy (geddit?) for anyone interested in hacking up their own wearable input device.

The Ergodex DX1 Input system, appears to be something particularly designed for the gamer market. In short, its a system that allows you to stick keys in any configuration on the board. I want one..

Oh and lastly, something that may be interesting to you if you liked this post; there is a posting on bbc news regarding a Infrared Sound Touch (IST) switch being used by Stephen Hawking.