This paper presents a portable, embedded, microcontroller-based system for bidirectional communication (recording and stimulation) between an electrode, implanted in the peripheral nervous system, and a host computer. The device is able to record and digitize spontaneous and/or evoked neural activities and store them in data files on a PC. In addition, the system has the capability of providing electrical stimulation of peripheral nerves, injecting biphasic current pulses with programmable duration, intensity, and frequency. The recording system provides a highly selective band-pass filter from 800 Hz to 3 kHz, with a gain of 56 dB. The amplification range can be further extended to 96 dB with a variable gain amplifier. The proposed acquisition/stimulation circuitry has been successfully tested through in vivo measurements, implanting a tf-LIFE electrode in the sciatic nerve of a rat. Once implanted, the device showed an input referred noise of 0.83 μVrms, was capable of recording signals below 10 μ V, and generated muscle responses to injected stimuli. The results demonstrate the capability of processing and transmitting neural signals with very low distortion and with a power consumption lower than 1 W. A graphic, user-friendly interface has been developed to facilitate the configuration of the entire system, providing the possibility to activate stimulation and monitor recordings in real time.
Stigmergy is a form of indirect interaction for coordination and communication purposes that can be found in many swarm systems. In this paper we present a tiled coprocessor for computation-intensive applications that explicitly exploits stigmergy to achieve adaptability avoiding the usual time-consuming handshakes involved in direct interactions. This adaptability, without any centralized control, directly implies architectural scalability at design time, flexibility in multitasking environment, adaptive load balancing and fault-tolerance at run-time. A CMOS 0.13μm implementation of such architecture for simple array processing operations is presented and evaluated. Obtained results show the potentiality of the proposed approac
With the progressive ageing of the western people, the number of chronic patients requiring a continuous follow-up by the physicians increases. Even though telehealth solution can be potentially effective in such a scenario, both the age factor and often the cost of the systems hamper the diffusion of telehealth systems. KeepInTouch is a low cost system for telehomecare conceived for the daily off-line monitoring of diabetic and cardiac patients. It exploits a mixed approach offering a simple TV-based front-end from the patient side, and a web-based one from the physician side. The web-based approach enables the authorized medical professionals to access the patient data from the web, exchanging useful information and providing textual feedback to the patient, all within the system interface. The patient's front-end is based on the Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T) technology, exploiting an acquisition unit connected to the patient's certified biomedical devices (sphygmomanometer, glucometer, body weight scale) and with the interactive DVB-T set-top box in order to provide a user-friendly interface on the TV for people not accustomed with computers. The system is going to be used for a first clinical trial in Ital
Summary Objectives: The aim of this research work is the development of a low-cost system for telemedicine based on the DVB-T technology. The diffusion of DVB-T standard and the low cost of DVB-T set-top boxes bring the vision of a capillary distribution of tele-home care monitoring systems with easy-to-use patient’s interface. Methods: Exploiting the potentiality of the DVB-T settop box, we transformed it into an “on-demand telehome care interface”. The Xlet we developed is able to govern the functionality of an external microcontrollerbased unit for the acquisition of the bio-signals of interest. The uplink connection is used to send the exam results to a remote care center. Results: The Xlet providing the patient interface on the set-top box is uploaded by a DVB-T broadcaster without any intervention in the patient’s home. A prototypal low-cost base station for the acquisition of the patient’s signals (1-lead ECG) has been developed. It is able to be connected to the set-top box via an infrared link. A smart-card-based system is in charge for the customization of the Xlet for every patient. Conclusions: The proposed system, based on a currently widespread infrastructure, is able to allow the patients monitoring from home without any installation procedure. Even untrained (or elderly) people can easily use such system due to their practice with the basic DVB-T home-entertainment equipments.
Abstract-Telemedicine is a form of remote assistance to patients unable to easily reach the hospitals. The diffusion of such systems depends both on the availability of widespread low-cost platforms and on the ease of use. In this paper, a DVB-T based platform for telemedicine is presented. The proposed system enables to perform simple routine exams through a low-cost Base Station connected to the patient's DVB-T set-top box, using the remote control and the TV screen as I/O interfaces for the user. The uplink connection is used to send the results to a remote care center. The practice with such home-entertainment equipments allows even elderly people to easily exploit the proposed platform.
We utilized the training impulses method to numerically quantify the volume of physical exercise to be prescribed to postmenopausal obese women in such a way of obtain the best possible improvement of their health-related quality of life. Nine women (57±4 years, 89±2 kg, 157±9 cm) carried out 3-months of exercise training (3 session/week each lasting 80 min) under the supervision of skilled operators which indirectly calculated the volume of physical exercise by assessing heart rate values while patient exercised and making sure that the workload corresponded to 50-60% of their maximum oxygen uptake. Before and after training anthropometric, functional and biomechanical variables were assessed. After training patients shoved statistically signifi cant (P<0.05) reduction in body mass (-2%) and body mass index (-4%), waist circumference (-4%), total (-6%) and LDL (-26%) serum cholesterol and glycaemia (-8%), diastolic arterial blood pressure (-14%), and oxygen cost (-14%) at the maximum workload during incremental cardiopulmonary test, the sway area from unipedal stance (right leg) of 20 s on a pressure platform (-49%), while increased both free fat body mass percentage (+3%) and space covered during the six minute walk test (+11%). It was concluded that, when an exercise protocol is carried out by postmenopausal obese women and the volume of exercise is instrumentally controlled by experienced operators, it could result in an effective benefi t on the quality of life of these patients since they ameliorate some critical anthropometric and functional parameters.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.