[olsen]

(anyone using this? investigated its utility? considered using it? thanks for any responses. madelyn)

http://www.prweb.com/releases/parkin...web1485674.htm

Virtual Reality Technology Helps Parkinson's Patients Walk Safely Again
MediGait LLC combines virtual reality programming and real-time motion detection into a cell-phone sized device that helps PD patients regain their natural ability to walk normally. This device helps PD patients by jump-starting a process that induces a neuroplastic brain response. This means the patient's brain literally rewires itself using healthy circuits bypassing diseased areas sometimes in as little as two weeks.
Gait velocity and stride length were improved in PD patients after training with a marked residual effect. Devices utilizing closed-loop visual feedback system are desirable non-pharmacologic interventions to improve walking in PD.


Haifa, Israel (PRWEB) October 18, 2008 -- Based on concepts formulated while working on a NASA project which improved the ability of pilots to navigate low-flying helicopters around tall objects, Professor Yoram Baram, CEO of Medigait LLC, made a serendipitous breakthrough for Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Using his breakthrough discovery, Professor Baram invented a high-tech virtual reality device called the GaitAid Virtual Walker.

Medigait is re-introducing the GaitAid Virtual Walker to the market after locating a reliable high quality US-based medical device company to manufacture it for them.

This cellphone-sized device helps patients with PD and other movement disorders greatly improve their stability while walking through a process called neuroplasticity. This process essentially rewires the patient's brain by creating new healthy circuits to bypass disease-damaged areas that once controlled the patients walking.


GaitAid Virtual Walker Device
Clinical studies have shown major improvements to walking speed and stride length in 70% to 85% of PD patients after only two weeks of 30-minute practice sessions. According to Itay Kavaler, his 68 year-old father and ten year PD patient once again walks like a healthy person. He states his father's walking began improving immediately with his first use of the GaitAid Virtual Walker.

Roughly 1.5 million people in the U.S. and another 1.6 million in Western Europe live with Parkinson's disease. Some estimates go as high as 6 million people worldwide suffer from PD. Although a cure hasn't been found, the GaitAid device offers a safe, effective, and non-pharmacological method for helping PD patients walk better. Walking better leads to more productive and safer lives

As Parkinson's disease progresses, gait impairment can become more pronounced and often turns dangerous. Characterized by shuffled walking, freezing, loss of balance, and falling down, Parkinson's patients suffer increasing frustration as their condition worsens.

Because many PD patients are in their 60s and older, the consequences of falling can turn deadly. In fact, one of the more tragic causes of death in PD patients isn't even from the disease itself. Instead, it's from pneumonia resulting from being bedridden by broken hips and other problems relating to injuries due to falling while walking.

" Gait velocity and stride length were improved in PD patients after training with a marked residual effect. Devices utilizing closed-loop visual feedback system are desirable non-pharmacologic interventions to improve walking in PD."
Alberto J. Espay, MD, The Neuroscience Institute, Department of Neurology, Movement Disorders Center, University of Cincinnati

Clinical studies appearing in medical journals, Neurology, Neural Processing Letters, and Journal of Neurological Sciences described the device as being effective as medication or surgery, but without the risk or adverse side effects. Links to this information can be found at Clinical Studies

For more information on the GaitAid Virtual Walker device:

Contact Amir Baram by calling 1-888-777-9906 (U.S) or email him : support (at) medigait (dot) com

About MediGait LLC
MediGait was founded by Yoram Baram, who received his PhD from MIT and is a Professor of Computer Science and incumbent of the Roy Matas / Winnipeg Chair in Biomedical Engineering at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology. The idea for this project was sparked 12 years ago while Professor Baram was designing a mechanism for NASA to navigate low-flying helicopters around obstacles. The concept of the design, which Baram later applied to the medical device, is that the optical images of objects help the observer navigate, stabilize and pace movement in space.

About the Technion Institute of Technology
The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology is Israel's leading science and technology university. Home to the winners of the Nobel Prize, it commands a worldwide reputation for its pioneering work in nanotechnology, electrical engineering, computer science, biotechnology, water-resource management, materials engineering, aerospace and medicine. The majority of the founders and managers of Israel's high-tech companies are alumni.

###

[GregD]

hi olsen,

This is the first I have heard of this. I will be checking further into it because my gait has become terrible. I would be happy to get back to the point where I could walk half way normal again.

Thanks for posting this.

GregD

[KC Tower]

For practice with a treadmill would lines across the non moving edge help????

How about filming a normal walker on the treadmill and playing it on a TV in front of the treadmill and then playing in PIP use a Video camera to film our compromised walk in real time. Could our minds help us to imitate the proper walking motions??

take care ,,,, ken

[ZucchiniFlower]

Wow, you don't need some fancy tech to do this. I've been talking about this for years.

We need VISUAL CUES, and auditory cues help, too!

All you need are lines on a sidewalk! They need to be lines that you APPROACH. (If you are pushing a cart, for example, focusing on the edge of the cart won't help.) You need to approach the line, and then approach the next line.

If lines are not there, I approach objects, like leaves, or colored bricks. It propels me foward.

I realized, just this week, that I don't have to look down to do this. I was walking by a fence and focused on lines on the fence that I was passing. When I got close to the line on the fence, my focus jumped ahead to a line further ahead of me. it worked quite well. Then I did the same thing with objects up ahead.

If it's too dark to see lines, I IMAGINE the lines and it helps a lot.

The key is looking foward, and approaching the line. Some tech glasses or such that might put a static line in place would NOT work for me at all. I didn't look at the device discussed in this thread yet.

I require visual feedback because I need to form new feedback loops, because my automatic ones are kaput. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

I can't walk in the dark, or with my eyes closed. I must have visual feedback, and the best kind is when I approach something ahead of me with my eyes. I walk faster, with longer strides, and my balance is better, too.

Banding works in a similar way, giving a sensory kind of feedback that forms new feedback loops.

[ZucchiniFlower]

Originally Posted by GregD

hi olsen,

This is the first I have heard of this. I will be checking further into it because my gait has become terrible. I would be happy to get back to the point where I could walk half way normal again.

Thanks for posting this.

GregD

Hi, Greg. Maybe this trick would help you. Someone told me that rocking side to side prior to walking helps to improve start hesitation. It worked for me.

Then I tried THINKING side to side motion, as I walked straight ahead of me. I walked much better that way, thinking side to side, as if I were rocking side to side instead of walking straight.

It's hard to explain. When my gait is very poor, I focus on the lines ahead on the sidewalk and at the same time I think 'side to side' as if I'm rocking, like a metronome. and I walk much better than if I were thinking of just walking foward.

I've never had feedback from anyone else about this trick, but it works well for me. I think it may necessitate formation of a new feedback loop that works better than the usual one.

[ZucchiniFlower]

Okay, so they developed a virtual tiled floor. Well, whoop dee do. Why wear a device on your head all the time when you can provide your own tiled floor, with a little imagination?

The open loop mode is when their tiled floor is in perpetual motion towards the patient regardles of patient's speed. In the closed loop mode, it appears fixed in space as a real floor and modifies depending on the patient's motions.

Patients did better with the closed loop mode. Some did better with the other mode. It seems to depend on how bradykinetic a patient is. If it's bad, closed loop is better.

I think the closed loop mode would work for me. I'd see lines ahead of me and approach them like lines on the sidewalk.

Funny, they don't ask the patients what they are focusing on. They just report changes in their gait, not their perception.

http://www.gaitaidmedical.net/articles/WOVT.pdf

[Margarita]

Hi,
I order the Gait Aid and got it two weeks ago. My husband has parkinson AND MS. He just started using it because he is in a very bad shape and almost bed ridden. For this reason I decided to try it.

I was amazed at the difference it makes. For the first time he was able to walk 20 minutes without loosing his concentration. It took only 10 minutes of practice before his gait improved. His steps became of the same length and of the same speed. I still have a long way to go because he is a human pretzel but we are sure he will be much but much better by the end of the year. Our goal is to get rid of the walker and wheel chair and use only a cane.

[Margarita]

Greg,

There are two rows of tiles, one for the left foot and one for the right foot. As you give the first left step, stepping for example on the left white tile, it moves towards you and disappears from your sight bringing next to you the white tile on the right side for you to give another step.

Gait Aid also helps you with the problem of drop foot. because if you step with a flat foot instead of the heel first, the tiles do not move. It really gives you feed back as how you are walking.
Margarita

[Margarita]

Hi ZucchiniFlower,
You do not wear the devise all the time, only 30 minutes a day. After that you have residual memory. You can imagine, feel you are seeing the tiles and your body without effort remembers how you were walking while using the glasses. I have had the devise for a very short time and saw already changes.

I had tried using the tiles in our building and the lines on the sidewalk but there is a problem. They have a fixed size. You can only make steps the size of the tiles. With the devise your stride can change, tiny steps or long steps!

The patient (My husand) focuses on the speed and length of his steps, on his posture, on where his place their foot (right in front of them, not all over the place). Because of the feedback he got a sense of how badly he was walking.

margarita

[MKane]

I have a service dog. He is a 130 lb. Rottweiller. Along with his vest that identifies him as a service dog, he has a leather harness with a fixed handle. It is amazing to me and my friends who watch how he helps me walk. I stumble the first few steps, but then he regulates my gait and I walk perfectly normally with him. The other benefit is that he MUST be walked several times a day. This gets me up and out in the fresh air no matter how I feel. As a result I feel better in the longrun.

Mary