A pioneering health tracker for stroke survivors will use the body to transmit data and accurately monitor progress.
A team of researchers in the United States are developing a revolutionary way of tracking body movements using Body Channel Identification sensing technology.
There are three components to this – small tags, or ‘smart stickers’, which are placed on everyday objects around the home; these are activated by a wearable wrist device; these are connected by the wearer’s body to create a closed-loop circuit.
This system can help give a comprehensive picture of a survivor’s movement post-stroke, and is currently being trialled in the world-leading Shirley Ryan AbilityLab.
Longer-term, researchers are also looking at broader applications for the tracker for other conditions with motor impairments, including traumatic brain injury, Multiple Sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.
“Current wearable-based solutions only provide limited information,” says Sunghoon Ivan Lee, associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who is leading the interdisciplinary research team.
“It does not actually let clinicians know about what activities patients are actually doing while they’re going about their daily living, which is a great indication of their functional ability and also functional independence, and that is the ultimate goal of rehabilitation.”
More than 795,000 people in the US experience stroke each year, and in the UK there are around 1.3million survivors. Around 80 per cent can experience some degree of upper limb impairment.
And the new approach to monitoring mobility is set to make a big impact through the project, which has been backed by $1.14million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding.
“Human skin is made out of conductive material, so you can think of it as a wire,” Dr Lee explains.
“We were the first group that has demonstrated that humans can be actually used as the power transfer medium. And if the power can be transmitted, that means data can be also transmitted because the wire is the same wire.”
Through accurately monitoring mobility, it can support patient progress, he adds.
“When patients are discharged, they need to keep on trying to use the affected side in order to maintain the functionality that they have gained through the inpatient rehabilitation process,” says Dr Lee.
“If they continue to rely on the stronger side, they will lose the gains they have made. That can lead to more adverse situations like falls.”
“Severe arm weakness is the most common impairment that stroke survivors face, impeding their ability to engage in everyday activities, from reaching to grasping,” says Mary Ellen Stoykov, research scientist at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab.
“With this grant, our interdisciplinary team will be able to capture novel data that will shed light on how individuals with stroke engage their arms and hands in daily life, and will inform clinical interventions that have the potential to lead to better outcomes related to motor control.”
