therapy

Darth Vader-style cast tracks progress with sensors

As anyone who has broken a bone knows, keeping up with physical therapy post-injury can be painful and annoying, and without a clear way to gauge progress, the regimen is as tempting to avoid as a bland diet.

Recent Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design graduate Pedro Nakazato Andrade hopes to keep people motivated--and thus improve recovery time--via a prototype cast that employs electromyographic sensors, which measure the electrical activity produced by a muscle when it moves.

Called "Bones," his cast prototype can keep a running tally of how much the injured area is being exercised.

The idea behind the design is rooted in the idea behind weight loss programs such as Weight Watchers: people who can track their progress using real, hard data are more likely to stay motivated and keep doing what they have been told to do.… Read more

Kinect hack allows for 'intelligent healing' massage

KINECT + Massage with Flow Field: pt 2 [Towards an Intelligent Healing Space] from Jai.Tronik on Vimeo.

Calling all massage therapists who want to help clients connect to their "energy fields," or who simply need a little stimulation to stay inspired in the middle of a long work day: The Flow Field 2 is here.

New York University grad student Jason Stephens has combined a video projector, Kinect, and OpenKinect Libraries programming tools to follow the massage therapist's "flow field" (aka movements), beaming the output onto the client's body in a colorful guide.

The project, called Intelligent Healing Spaces, points on its home page to a recent Oxford Journal of Rheumatology study excerpt:

There is increasing evidence that drug-free illusion therapies can be beneficial for the amelioration of chronic pain, particularly so for conditions in which some of the pain is thought to have a cortical origin...If cortical misrepresentation of body parts contributes to pain, then manipulating the appearance of those body parts might be a useful tool in the reduction of pain.

Actual therapeutic value has yet to be proven, and the client would require some kind of mirror to be able to see what is going on back there, but either way, at least the massage therapist should be having a good show.… Read more

Stroke survivors regain vision with new light therapy

May is National Stroke Awareness month, and Boca Raton, Fla.-based NovaVision is using the occasion to trumpet a successful new therapy for partial vision loss due to stroke.

According to NovaVision's statistics, stroke is a primary cause of serious long-term disability and often causes partial blindness due to neurological trauma and visual field loss. For example, a stroke victim might retain general sight, but lose their peripheral vision or even the ability to see if he or she moves eyes to the left or right. Until now, according to NovaVision research, the opinion amongst most physicians stated such … Read more

'RiceWrist' retrains motor skills after spinal-cord injury

Almost exactly a year ago, in April 2010, professional motocross rider Randy Childers sustained serious injuries after a crash in the last race of the day at Cowboy Badlands in West Beaumont, Texas.

He suffered broken ribs and a fractured wrist, but most seriously a crushed vertebra in his neck (C3) that required him to be airlifted to Houston, where surgeons inserted an artificial vertebra and fused two others together (C4 and C5) during a marathon operation that lasted 12 hours.

Today, the 24-year-old is the star in a single-patient trial of Rice University's RiceWrist robot, a wearable exoskeleton that mimics the joints from his shoulder to his hand.… Read more

BP eyes Kevin Costner-backed oil clean-up tech

Go ahead, make your "Waterworld" jokes. BP has placed an order to purchase machines to separate spilled oil and Gulf of Mexico water from Ocean Therapy Solutions, a company backed by actor and environmentalist Kevin Costner, according to reports.

Ocean Therapy Solutions has been testing the centrifugal oil-water separator but has not yet received payment from BP, which is under growing pressure to stem the massive flow of oil from the remains of the Deepwater Horizon rig and clean up the spill.

"Kevin has spent 15 years and $24 million of his own money on this technology, … Read more

The 404 593: Where we're living the hypnagogic dream with The Sleep Doctor (podcast)

The Sleep Doctor, Dr. Michael Breus, is back and we're ready to bombard him with our pressing questions about sleep apnea, lucid dreaming, snoring, sleep positions, sleep talking, morning breath, sleep aids, night terrors, bruxism, and more!

We kick off the discussion with the good doctor about the dangers of using a laptop or an iPad just before going to bed. Dr. Breus tells us those devices emit light similar to what you'd see on a computer or television screen, which can disrupt the body's ability to secrete melatonin, thus preventing a good night's sleep.

He … Read more

Study: Treating panic disorder works as well online

Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) appears to be just as effective in treating panic disorder and mild to moderate depression when it is done online as it is in a more traditional, group-based setting, according to a doctoral thesis to be presented next week at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

"Internet-based CBT is also more cost-effective than group therapy," says Jan Bergström, a clinical psychologist at the Anxiety Disorders Unit of the Psychiatry Northwest division of the Stockholm County Council. "The results therefore support the introduction of Internet treatment into regular psychiatry."

Bergström'… Read more

The 404 548: Where we can has cheezburger, chipz (podcast)

We usually scold Wilson for eating while we're on the air, but today we're making an exception so that we can taste test Jeff's horrific supermarket find: Cheeseburger-flavored Doritos! Who knew that harnessing the sinewy flavor of cooked beef and artificial cheese would be such a catastrophe?

It takes the three of us a few minutes to recover from the explosion of McNausea, but we get it together and move onto the big Apple news of the day: while many Appleheads are still clamoring over the forthcoming iPad release, the rumor mill is also churning about the fourth-generation iPhone that will supposedly be named the iPhone HD for its 960x640-pixel resolution screen. Other features to look out for include a front-facing camera for video calls and an software update that allows for application multitasking. Our own Apple fanboy Wilson G. Tang contributes his own concerns about battery life and network robustness, and also gives us permission to tattoo a half-full hourglass on his face if his predictions are incorrect.

The latest tech trend to hit Japan is called "Ringtone Therapy" that promises the cure for fay fever and obesity by using simple sounds through your phone. Japanese citizens suffering from stuffiness, runny noses, and sneezing from the pollen in the air can call a service that emits noises that supposedly releases the pollen in your sinuses if the user holds the phone up to their nose. You know what else is good for protecting your sinuses? Not holding foreign objects up to your nose.

We can't thank Steve Fatone and Props Guy Jim enough for all the work they've done for the show. Whether it's the Official 404 Temporary Tattoos, NDC's Motherboard action figure, The 404 hoverboard from BTTF, or the Yu Be Gone spray repellent, these guys are a tremendous asset to the show and we're honored to have them as friends. Thanks again, guys! Let us know if there's anything we can do to return the favor, keeping in mind that Wilson is no longer allowed to attend children's birthday parties.

Finally, be sure to tune into the second half of the show for Calls From the Public plus a couple E-Mails From the Public! Keep sending your comments, questions, critiques, and sticker pictures to the 404(at)cnet{dot}com and you might be on a future episode of The 404!

EPISODE 548 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video

Basic color healing

We always have a hard time taking Mystic Board programs seriously because no matter how useful the content is (and it's usually not very useful at all), the programs' interfaces are always crammed full of advertising. In fact, most Mystic Board programs are nothing but thinly veiled advertisements, with the bare minimum of content and features. MB Color Therapy surprised us by having quite a few different features, although the cluttered, unattractive interface remains.

MB Color Therapy is based on the premise that certain colors have certain psychological effects. Even if this is true, we cannot vouch for whether … Read more

Researchers accelerate proton cancer treatment

For bone cancer patient Nicole McLaughlin to get proton-beam radiation therapy--a treatment to which she owes her life--it took traveling across the country to what then, in 1999, was the only facility providing such technology.

But new research being developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which could reduce the size of proton accelerator machines from that of a football field to that of a traditional X-ray machine, could soon make proton therapy more easily accessible to all.

Better-known X-ray radiation goes all the way through the body and can cause healthy cell death, which could be potentially catastrophic depending on … Read more