December 7th, 2007
Haptics for stroke victims
If you think of haptics at all, it’s likely in terms of force-feedback joysticks. It’s a game.
But it’s not a game for stroke victims. A Rice robotics team under Marcia O’Malley (right) is harnessing haptics to promote faster stroke recovery and more accurate measurements for therapists.
The system in this case is dirt-cheap. Patients use a simple haptic joystick to move an object across a computer screen. The joystick’s software and motors resist when the patient goes the wrong way. They deliver precise data to therapists.
If Prof. O’Malley looks familiar, her maiden name is Kirchenberg, and her B.A. is from Purdue. (Go Boilermakers.) Her advanced degrees are from Vanderbilt. (Go Commodores.)
In addition to her work with haptics, Prof. O’Malley has also been winning teaching awards. The system was created along with Memorial Hospital and the Institute for Rehabilitation and Research, both of which are in the Texas Medical Center.
What is most interesting in all this is how the technology getting results is fairly simple and replicable. Many haptics applications have come to nothing due to their complexity. A joystick controlling a point on a screen is mainly software.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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