Robots’ largely positive, somewhat equivocal role in therapy for children with autism and cerebral palsy (HIMSS)

February 14, 2019 | by

A Georgia Tech study presented at this week’s HIMSS19 conference presented findings of an eight-week study of children with specific neurological conditions who were assisted by robotics in specific therapies for movement and cognition. The study began with the simple attraction of children to robots. Robots also don’t have the negative connotations of therapists, and in fact, based on the studies cited, robots  are more trusted than humans by both adults and children.

For a child, robots ‘repetitive and predictable interactions’ can be reassuring (like Pepper in a Belgium hospital two years ago) , along with ‘gamified’ therapies and child-robot direct interaction as well as therapist-guided. The study’s approaches took several forms:

  • Virtual reality therapy games
  • Guided physiotherapy in movement–gross and fine motor skills
  • Cognitive therapy to improve attention span
  • ‘Gamified’ therapy
  • Robot therapy coaching
  • Tablet-based games

At the start of the study, physical and cognitive baselines were taken and retested at four weeks. By eight weeks the difference in movement parameters between normally developing children and those with cerebral palsy had largely equalized. In a second study, when the robots were withdrawn, their improvement decreased, but not back to baseline. The researchers’ concern was of course, dependency on the robots for therapy on a long term basis. HIMSS presentation by Ayanna Howard, professor of robotics at Georgia Tech is currently online–view quickly as usually they are withdrawn shortly after HIMSS is over.  Mobihealthnews

VA Digital Health Platform proof-of-concept unveiled; new VA head nominated

January 12, 2017 | by

Back in April 2016, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in Congressional hearings hinted at an end of year preview of a ‘state-of-the-art’ digital health platform which would integrate veteran health information from multiple sources. That debut was revealed this week in analytics vendor Apervita‘s announcement that they are participating in a proof-of-concept of the VA Digital Health Platform (DHP). According to their release, in the first three weeks, they and the DHP partners demonstrated that they could organize and extract insights from veteran data originating from VA, military, and commercial electronic health records, plus e-prescribing, apps, devices, and wearables. The end outcome is to provide a unified view or dashboard that integrates data, implements a care plan, tracks clinical encounters, optimizes medications, responds to patient needs, and more. The prime contractor in DHP is Georgia Tech, which brought on board Apervita, Salesforce (workflow user engagement), and MuleSoft (API). Next steps are not disclosed. Mobihealthnews, Health Data Management

One of the sparkplugs behind the DHP and also interoperability of DOD’s and VA’s badly outdated VISTA EHR is current VA Undersecretary for Health David Shulkin, MD. Today, at an eventful press conference, President-Elect Donald J. Trump nominated him for the VA secretary position. Dr Shulkin was previously CEO of Beth Israel Medical Center in NYC and president of the Atlantic Health System ACO. He will also be, upon Senate approval, the first non-veteran head of the VA. What is apparent is that P-E Trump has not moved one iota from the promise he made during the campaign to move fast on modernizing, improving quality and speeding up veterans health services–and for that he needs an insider.  Health Data Management

Teaching Morse code via Google Glass passive haptic learning

November 3, 2016 | by

The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) has been experimenting with several methods of passive haptic learning (PHL). In this test using Google Glass, they taught subjects Morse code in four hours. The method: having the subjects play a game while feeling vibration taps between their temple and ear that represented the dots and dashes of Morse code. This passively taught them code through their tactile senses, even while they were distracted by the game. The test group received a voice prompt for each corresponding letter, while the control group did not. When tested on the Morse alphabet, the test group was nearly perfect, while the control group was accurate only about half the time. The vibrations were generated in Google Glass through a lower than 15 Hz signal played very slowly and below hearing range through the bone-conduction transducer. “Does this new study mean that people will rush out to learn Morse code? Probably not,” said Georgia Tech professor Thad Starner. “It shows that PHL lowers the barrier to learn text-entry methods — something we need for smartwatches and any text-entry that doesn’t require you to look at your device or keyboard.” Georgia Tech News  Hat tip to former Northern Ireland Editor Toni Bunting