Cutaneous Electrohydraulic (CUTE) Wearable Devices for Pleasant Broad-Bandwidth Haptic Cues.

By focusing on vibrations, current wearable haptic devices underutilize the skin's perceptual capabilities. Devices that provide richer haptic stimuli, including contact feedback and/or variable pressure, are typically heavy and bulky due to the underlying actuator technology and the low sensitivity of hairy skin, which covers most of the body. This article presents a system architecture for compact wearable devices that deliver salient and pleasant broad-bandwidth haptic cues: Cutaneous Electrohydraulic (CUTE) devices combine a custom materials design for soft haptic electrohydraulic actuators that feature high stroke, high force, and electrical safety with a comfortable mounting strategy that places the actuator in a non-contact resting position.

Controlling and powering a fully implantable artificial pancreas refillable by ingestible pills.

Over the past decade, there has been a growing interest in the development of an artificial pancreas for intraperitoneal insulin delivery. Intraperitoneal implantable pumps guarantee more physiological glycemic control than subcutaneous wearable ones, for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. In this work, a fully implantable artificial pancreas refillable by ingestible pills is presented.

The Certification Matters: A Comparative Performance Analysis of Combat Application Tourniquets versus Non-Certified CAT Look-Alike Tourniquets.

Introduction: The Stop the Bleed campaign provided civilians with tourniquet application training and increased the demand for tourniquets among the general population, which led to the development of new commercially available devices. However, most widely available tourniquets have not undergone testing by regulatory bodies and their efficacy remains unknown.

Study Objective: This study aimed to compare the efficacy and performance of Combat Application Tourniquets (CAT) versus uncertified tourniquets.

Modified Functional Reach Test: Upper-Body Kinematics and Muscular Activity in Chronic Stroke Survivors.

Effective control of trunk muscles is fundamental to perform most daily activities. Stroke affects this ability also when sitting, and the Modified Functional Reach Test is a simple clinical method to evaluate sitting balance. We characterize the upper body kinematics and muscular activity during this test.

Design of a system to detect the force applied by tourniquets in a manikin's limb.

Massive hemorrhage remains the number one cause of preventable death in trauma worldwide. However, immediate intervention by a bystander can significantly improve the survival of the injured person. In this context, the tourniquets represent the most quick and effective devices for stopping arterial and venous blood flow.

Integrating Tactile Feedback Technologies Into Home-Based Telerehabilitation: Opportunities and Challenges in Light of COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for advancing the development and implementation of novel means for home-based telerehabilitation in order to enable remote assessment and training for individuals with disabling conditions in need of therapy. While somatosensory input is essential for motor function, to date, most telerehabilitation therapies and technologies focus on assessing and training motor impairments, while the somatosensorial aspect is largely neglected. The integration of tactile devices into home-based rehabilitation practice has the potential to enhance the recovery of sensorimotor impairments and to promote functional gains through practice in an enriched environment with augmented tactile feedback and haptic interactions.

Effect of Short-Term Exposure to Supplemental Vibrotactile Kinesthetic Feedback on Goal-Directed Movements after Stroke: A Proof of Concept Case Series.

Many survivors of stroke have persistent somatosensory deficits on the contralesional side of their body. Non-invasive supplemental feedback of limb movement could enhance the accuracy and efficiency of actions involving the upper extremity, potentially improving quality of life after stroke. In this proof-of-concept study, we evaluated the feasibility and the immediate effects of providing supplemental kinesthetic feedback to stroke survivors, performing goal-directed actions with the contralesional arm.

Vibrotactile Feedback for Improving Standing Balance.

Maintaining balance standing upright is an active process that complements the stabilizing properties of muscle stiffness with feedback control driven by independent sensory channels: proprioceptive, visual, and vestibular. Considering that the contribution of these channels is additive, we investigated to what extent providing an additional channel, based on vibrotactile stimulation, may improve balance control. This study focused only on healthy young participants for evaluating the effects of different encoding methods and the importance of the informational content.

Interaction between position sense and force control in bimanual tasks.

Background: Several daily living activities require people to coordinate the motion and the force produced by both arms, using their position sense and sense of effort. However, to date, the interaction in bimanual tasks has not been extensively investigated.

Methods: We focused on bimanual tasks where subjects were required: (Experiment 1) to move their hands until reaching the same position - equal hand position implied identical arm configurations in joint space - under different loading conditions;(Experiment 2) to produce the same amount of isometric force by pushing upward, with their hands placed in symmetric or asymmetric positions.

Bimanual control of position and force in people with multiple sclerosis: preliminary results.

Proprioceptive deficits are frequent and disabling symptoms of neurological diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS). These deficits are poorly understood partly because of the limited sensitivity and reproducibility of clinical measures. However, their assessment is crucial in planning and evaluating rehabilitative treatments.

Robot-based assessment of sitting and standing balance: preliminary results in Parkinson's disease.

Postural responses to unstable conditions or perturbations are important predictors of the risk of falling and can reveal balance deficits in people with neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's Disease (PD). However, there is a lack of evidences related to devices and protocols providing a comprehensive and quantitative evaluation of postural responses in different stability conditions. We tested ten people with PD and ten controls on a robotic platform capable to provide different mechanical interactions and to measure the center of pressure displacement, while trunk acceleration was recorded with a sensor placed on the sternum.

Assessment of bimanual proprioception during an orientation matching task with a physically coupled object.

Assessing proprioception is important for understanding and treating sensorimotor impairments. Many daily tasks require bimanual manipulation of objects, but state of the art methods for the assessment of proprioception are far away from bimanual activities, and instead evaluate sensorimotor integrity in oversimplified and often unimanual goal-directed tasks. Here, we developed a new device and method to assess proprioception and force production by simulating a realistic bimanual behavior.

Effect of Dual Tasking on Vibrotactile Feedback Guided Reaching - a Pilot Study.

Vibrotactile feedback (VTF) has been proposed as a non-invasive way to augment impaired or lost kinesthetic feedback in certain patient populations, thereby enhancing the real-time control of purposeful limb movements and quality of life. We used a dual tasking scenario to investigate the effects of cognitive load and short-term VTF training on VTF-guided reaching. Participants grasped the handle of a planar manipulandum with one hand and received VTF of its motion via a vibrotactile display attached to the non-moving arm.

Tactile-STAR: A Novel Tactile STimulator And Recorder System for Evaluating and Improving Tactile Perception.

Many neurological diseases impair the motor and somatosensory systems. While several different technologies are used in clinical practice to assess and improve motor functions, somatosensation is evaluated subjectively with qualitative clinical scales. Treatment of somatosensory deficits has received limited attention.