ARTORG Center for Biomedical Engineering Research

Group Members

GER

Telerehabilitation

As the name of our research group implies, Gerontechnology and Rehabilitation, our work often involves individuals who are constrained in their ability to move about freely and with ease. This highlights an important portion of the population that our research hopes to assist by focusing on telerehabilitation. In doing so, this work promotes the creation of tools that can be used outside of the research laboratory, directly in patient homes, or by trained professionals within clinics. Our most current work focuses on physical therapy, whereas previous work has focused extensively on aphasia. 

Telerehabilitation - The Smart EGG

Smart Sensor Egg

Current Project Members: 
Nic Krummenacher (Master's Student), Tim Vanbellingen (Senior Researcher), & Stephan Gerber (Post-doc)
Project Start: 01.01.2020

In Switzerland approximately 180’000 people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Parkinson Disease, Multiple Sclerosis) whereas in most cases non-motor (e.g., sleep disorders, cognition) and motor symptoms (e.g., coordination, tremor) are affected. Especially, difficulties with precise hand and finger movements during the performance of both basic activities of daily living such as dressing, grooming as well as higher activities of daily living such as cooking, shopping, regular medication intake influence quality of life negatively.

Traditional rehabilitation to improve finger movements such as physical therapy in the clinic in order to train activities of daily living has shown to be effective. However, there is a lack of systems to increase the training intensity of finger movements at home. Therefore to close the gap, the Gerentechnology and Rehabilitation Group has developed a Smart Egg, which is connected via Bluetooth to an Smartphone-App, to train finger movements remotely. To mesure the performance and monitor the improvement of the patient over time, the Smart Egg is based on different sensors (e.g., gyroscope, pressure sensor).

Overall, the aim of this project is to evaluate fine motor skill performance assosicated with different aspects of ADLs by using the Smart Sensor Egg among patients suffering from neurodegenerative.

Memory Training

Memory Training with Serious Games

Project Members: 
Michael Falkner (Game Developer)
Project Start: June 2019

In a collaboration with Universitären Psychiatrischen Dienste Bern (UPD), we have made a series of 16 cognitive training serious games for older adults who are either at risk for developing dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease, or are already diagnosed with a dementia related cognitive impairment.

The games are broken into the following four memory categories: working, episodic, spatial and semantic. Four games have been developed for each category to improve player immersion and adherence over 9 months.