Tricycle for disabled children

The need of a tricycle for disabled children that are able to cycle is permanent. Several commercially available models are not comfortable, awkward, and non-ergonomic. The devise is to be safe, easy to climb and to get off, ergonomic, and designed for children.

Shabtai Hirshberg from School of Practical Engineering at Hadassah College Jerusalem designed this trike to encourage physical activity among kids suffering from neurological or muscular disorders. It is named A2B. When a child mounts the trike, stepping on the pedal locks the wheels, enabling the child to literally walk right into a seated position. The chest support keeps the child stabilized, and the whole trike can be customized to each child's needs.The gear based rear wheel makes it easy for the child to pedal since less force is required to drive the system. The entire steering shaft is cable driven so very small movements translate into larger ones.  

Now, I hope that Israel, known for its fast commercial implementation and economic stability (I mean the last weeks) will provide entrepreneurs for mass production  of the A2B.

Strength® Shoe

Science and technology do not stand still. To a broad collection, that included also SoM-ToUR, we can add Strength® Shoe (on the picture).
As far as I can understand the explanations, the summary of the idea is to train while stepping on calves only. Like ladies do, when walk on high heels. Like ladies do, when their high heels are broken.
Reasonable explanations why it is good and a list of about a hundred of sportsmen and tens of commands that train wearing Strength® Shoe may be found on the company site.
Releasing my imagination, I could suppose that high heels of my wife would "increase her anaerobic capacity and your anaerobic power by 500%" (update: in case they will be broken). The second though was much wiser: 'She has several pairs of high heels, each for less than "$129.95 only!"!'

Euro 2008

People with disabilities take centre stage at the UEFA EURO 2008™ quarter-finals to demonstrate their sporting skills under the slogan "Football for All".

Programme
Matches involving Disability Teams
19 June (Basel): Visually impaired / blind players – Spain v England
20 June (Vienna): Players with learning disabilities – (Special Olympics SO) SO Austria v ÖBSV Austria
21 June (Basel): Players with physical disabilities (Paralympics) – Switzerland v Germany
22 June (Vienna): Players with cerebral palsy – Ireland v Netherlands

The picture below via drugoi are from to-day's game in Basel.


© Reuters/Scanpix



© Reuters/Scanpix


© Reuters/Scanpix


© Reuters/Scanpix


© Reuters/Scanpix


© Reuters/Scanpix


© Reuters/Scanpix

Aquatic therapy - indications, techniques, reasons.

Aquatic therapy or pool therapy consists of an exercise program that is performed in the water. That is for several reasons:

• Water provides buoyancy and support for the body. When you are neck-deep in water, you only have to support 10% of your actual body weight.
• In the pool, injured people can exercise with a greater range of motion without hurting joints or re-injuring themselves.
• The workout gets blood moving faster through the injured area, so it heals faster.
• Water pressure helps keep down the swelling that often accompanies injury.
• Aquatic therapy use the resistance of water instead of weights and improves fitness.

Indications for aquatic therapy are plenty:

• Sensory Disorders
• Limited Range of Motion
• Weakness
• Poor Motor Coordination
• Pain
• Spasticity
• Perceptual/Spatial Problems
• Balance Deficits
• Respiratory Problems
• Circulatory Problems
• Depression/Poor Self-Esteem
• Cardiac Diseases
• Joint Replacement
• Motor Learning
• Orthopedic Injuries / Trauma
• Obesity
• Prenatal
• Neurological (MS)
• Osteoporosis
• Rheumatology (Arthritis / Fibromyalgia)

And techniques are numerous:

• Ai Chi
• Ai Chi Ne
• BackHab
• Bad Ragaz
• The Burdenko Method
• Feldenkrais
• Halliwick
• Lyu Ki Dou
• Massage
• Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF)
• Water Pilates
• Unpredictable Command Technique (UCT)
• Wassertanzen
• Water Yoga
• Watsu
• Yogalates

I remembered all this just because saw very beautiful pictures of an underwater treadmill for these perposes (along this post). Called HYDRO PHYSIO™ /you can find the Internet site by yourself if you are curious enough/.

I wonder what kind of flood one gets opening the door like on the last photo. Sure, the developers and testers have a lot to tell about it.

Lack of statistics in the Middle East

On the last, 4th EEMCPDM conference that took place recently in Eilat (Israel) Dr. Goldstein mentioned the lack of statistical data on the CP and disability incidence in the Middle Eastern countries.
From my experience I can only confirm this. To my knowledge, the only country that its statistics and epidemiology is known, published in English and always available from the professionals is Israel.
Palestinian Authority published, also in the Internet, its comprehensive statistical report. As far as it is in Arab and I do not read in Arab I can not evaluate what is written there.
Only one peer-reviewed publication may be found in English about disabilities in Jordan.
My recent efforts to find some numbers on the situation in Egypt and Morroco were totally unsuccessful.
Once, my colleague from Jordan told that trying to found out the numbers and its yearly dynamics we found very interesting facts. Once, CP incidence was very-very low in Jordan. The children with CP just not survived. Then, several years ago the numbers increased to un-normally high (comparing to the European). The reason was some dissemination of the CP topic among MDs and PTs and massive mis-diagnosis.
If you need to make any calculations for these countries in order to conduct a clinical trial or market survey, or humanitarian action, you have no other way, but to base your calculations on the US or European statistics. On the other hand there is a wide field of challenges for epidemiological studies.

Who invented physiotherapy? /at least, fitness trainers/

Dr. Gustav Zander -
Jonas Gustav Wilhelm Zander (1835–1920) was a Swedish physician who invented a therapeutic method of exercise carried out by means of special apparatus such as that seen here. Zander began his work in the 1860s and established the Zander Institute in London, where he published Mechanical Exercise: A Means of Cure (1883) before coming to New York. His hope was that his equipment, which employed gradual muscle resistance, would supplement normal gymnasiums that excluded women, older people, and "weakly" people of either sex.

From here

Walking on books

As far as SoM's approach means walking on changing surfaces that can not be predicted, the idea of Hungarian artists may also be useful. © AP/Scanpix

The level of difficulty may be increased from lullabies with pictures through fantasy to enciclopedias.

© AP/Scanpix

Walking In My Shoes...

A shoe may be a perfect a container for different mechanisms. A shoe may be a mechanism by itself. Or a mechanism may serve as a shoe.

Starting with a simple air pump.

About combination of iPod and Nike most people heard.

And if we mention MP3 shoes, meet Dada.

And if we mentioned Nike, let's mention their competitors - Adidas footings that have a computer chip and a tiny motor built into its sole and continually adjust itself to a runner's size, pace, terrain and even fatigue level. See details here.

And if we talk about Adidas, it runs a mutual project with Polar to develop a system that includes advanced heart rate monitoring built directly into the apparel, along with speed and distance measurement integrated into the shoes.

The Responsive Environments Group from MIT has some incredible developments. Here are two of them.

Wireless Wearable System for Gait Evaluation.

Power station in a shoe.

One can also convert the energy of his mass lifting during walking by inflating a stool to rest after exercise.

Georgia Tech scientists produced a super-duper nanogenerator that they plan to incorporate in shoes too.

Another interesting device restricts TV watching time by walking time. More your kid walks (runs, play outside), more TV he gets.

GPS in the sole is not a new idea, but specialized GPS Alarm Shoes for Sex Workers are also available.
Shoes that have adjustable heel height have different solutions. This, for example, may be up to 38°.

Heels may be interchangeable.

Electric Cinderella shoe is aimed for self defense.
Tap-n-bass is a pair of wired-up tap shoes are picked-up by piezo contact microphones and remixed live, resulting in drum-n-bass-inspired music.

A kids' toy for some boubtful walking communication.

Just for $50 you can have flip flops with a hidden pocket. I suppose, it is worthy if you carry more than $50 to a beach.

ArchPort shoes are designed similarly. And cost similarly.

And more cool things that are not in this post. For example, SoM-TOUR sandal.

TBI statistics in children

Traumatic brain injury (TBI), also called acquired brain injury or simply head injury, occurs when a sudden trauma causes damage to the brain. TBI can result when the head suddenly and violently hits an object, or when an object pierces the skull and enters brain tissue.

The term TBI is used for head injuries that can cause changes in one or more areas, such as:
- thinking and reasoning,
- understanding words,
- remembering things,
- paying attention,
- solving problems,
- thinking abstractly,
- talking,
- behaving,
- walking and other physical activities,
- seeing and/or hearing, and

- learning.

The term TBI is not used for a person who is born with a brain injury. It also is not used for brain injuries that happen during birth.

More than one million children receive brain injuries each year in the USA (almost half of all TBIs). More than 30,000 of these children have lifelong disabilities as a result of the brain injury.

Among children ages 0 to 14 years, TBI results in an estimated
- 2,685 deaths;
- 37,000 hospitalizations; and
- 435,000 emergency department visits.

These count only cases seen in an emergency department, but not with light damage.

• Individuals age 15 to 24 have the highest risk of TBI.
• Falls are the leading cause of TBI; rates are highest for children ages 0 to 4 years.
• The rate of motor vehicle-traffic-related TBI is highest among adolescents ages 15 to 19 years.

• Child abuse is the cause of 64% of all infant head injuries
• Approximately 1 in 500 school-age children each year receive a head injury severe enough to be hospitalized
• 1 million children sustain a head injury each year
• 165,000 children will be hospitalized due to a head injury
• 1 in 10 of those children hospitalized will suffer moderate to severe impairments

Source: Langlois JA, Rutland-Brown W, Thomas KE. Traumatic brain injury in the United States: emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. Atlanta (GA): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nation Center for Injury Prevention and Control; 2006.

Kraus, J. F, and MacArthur, D. L. (1996) Epidemiologic Aspects of Brain Injury. Neurologic Clinics, 14(2): 435-450.

Not iPhone but BrainScope NT-1000

Very few claim that they know how to treat. Meanwhile, dozens say that know to diagnose. BrainScope is one of them. Their BrainScope NT-1000 (under development) is to diagnose traumatic brain injuries (TBI). It uses quantitative electroencephalogram (qEEG) that was popular in the 1930's, but not to-day. Nevertheless, BrainScopes says, that they develop other devices for detecting and diagnostics of (take a deep breath):

- stroke

- Alzheimer’s

- dementia

- depression

- seizure

- ADD

- autism and related conditions

- encephalopathy

- drug overdose

... and etc.

I do not know whether it really works, but want to try it and I have tens of ideas where to use. Firstly, of cause, to detect the effect of our method!

Museum pictures

The National Museum of Public Health has been uploading hundreds of incredible photos from its archives onto Flickr. Here below are some of them that I found to be of interest.

Improvised physical therapy equipment from 37th General Hospital -- Bagnoli. ~World War 2. 37th General Hospital.



World War 2 era.



Korean battle amputees learn to walk again with artificial limbs at the 3rd ROKA Annex Hospital, Pusan, Korea. Photo by Cpl. Alex Pobudinsky. 01/23/1952.



Prosthetic arm, at Walter Reed Hospital, possibly ca. 1950.


via Boingboing

Disabled dancers

The video of Ma Li and Zhai Xiaowei dancing is pretty popular. That is why I decided to put out here to more videos od disabled dancing. Both amaizing.

1. BBoy from Canada


2. Mahesh from India


I have a very beautiful dance of another amputee somewhere on media, that I will upload as soon as I will find it.

"Red freaks" or "A hamlet against dementia"

Neuroprotection is a very 'glamour' word nowadays. Hundreds of compounds have being tested for their neuroprotective ability. Most of them found to be effective [in animals], only few reach Phase II clinical studies, less then ten got FDA and are on market.

My experience with red light neuroprotection is in retinal lesions, caused by laser. In rats. The experience was negative, i.e. no positive effect was found. This idea was based on the positive experience of similar testing on the model of methanol toxicity in rodent eyes.

The news are that Dr Gordon Dougal, a director of Virulite, a medical research company based in County Durham, invented/created/developed a hamlet that stimulates your brain with infra-red light in order to treat dementia, Alzheimer's disease, to help improve cognition. Dr Dougal suppose that ten minutes of daily exposure (hamlet wear) will be enough. I am not sure, but probably, he is afraid that longer exposure may cause overheating and boiling of one's brains. Anyway, it is not connected to motor rehabilitation now, but may be connected in the summer 2008, if the planned clinical studies will be successful.

Also the success of clinical studies will mean that staying outside in the sunny day for 10 minutes daily with your head uncovered may prevent you of being 'old idiot' when you will become 'old and wise' instead.