Clinical
clinical effectiveness
Deception, ExoNETs, SmushWare & Organic Data: Tech-facilitated neurorehabilitation & human-machine training
Making use of visual display technology and human-robotic interfaces, many researchers have illustrated various opportunities to distort visual and physical realities. We have had success with interventions such as error augmentation, sensory crossover, and negative viscosity. Judicial application of these techniques leads to training situations that enhance the learning process and can restore movement ability after neural injury. I will trace out clinical studies that have employed such technologies to improve the health and function, as well as share some leading-edge insights that include deceiving the patient, moving the "smarts" of software into the hardware, and examining clinical effectiveness
Understanding the Assessment of Spatial Neglect and its Treatment Using Prism Adaptation Training
Spatial neglect is a syndrome that is most frequently associated with damage to the right hemisphere, although damage to the left hemisphere can also result in signs of spatial neglect. It is characterised by absent or deficient awareness of the contralesional side of space. The screening and diagnosis of spatial neglect lacks a universal gold standard, but is usually achieved by using various modes of assessment. Spatial neglect is also difficult to treat, although prism adaptation training (PAT) has in the past reportedly showed some promise. This seminar will include highlights from a series of studies designed to identify knowledge gaps, and will suggest ways in which these can be bridged. The first study was conducted to identify and quantify clinicians’ use of assessment tools for spatial neglect, finding that several different tools are in use, but that there is an emerging consensus and appetite for harmonisation. The second study included PAT, and sought to uncover whether PAT can improve engagement in recommended therapy in order to improve the outcomes of stroke survivors with spatial neglect. The final study, a systematic review and meta-analysis, sought to investigate the scientific efficacy (rather than clinical effectiveness) of PAT, identifying several knowledge gaps in the existing literature and a need for a new approach in the study of PAT in the clinical setting.