Rehabilitation outcome in traumatic and non traumatic brain injury

In the February edition of Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine http://bit.ly/ig2zcW Dr. Colantonio and his team from the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute analyze data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information’s National Rehabilitation Reporting System on brain injuries, and inpatient rehabilitation treatment outcome. His group found that approximately half of acquired brain injury patients receiving inpatient rehabilitation had non-traumatic causes of brain injury. Traumatic brain injury patients were more likely to be younger, male, from rural areas, and to make greater gains in rehabilitation. Differences were found in the types and numbers of comorbidities. However, patients from these 2 groups had similar lengths of rehabilitation stay.
The HandTutor, ArmTutor and LegTutor system offer the possibility to do intensive massed and motivated exercise practice and are used in both traumatic and non traumatic brain injury patients.

FDA's "Innovation Pathway". How the HandTutor system can teach patients to use a bionic hand

The Food & Drug Administration FDA launches Medical Device "Innovation Pathway". This initiative aims to speed the introduction of breakthrough medical devices. The first project is the brain-controlled, upper-extremity prosthetic. This project follows on from the DARPA-funded prosthetic bionic arm and hand project. The initiative aims to speed the introduction of a military project to create a prosthetic arm http://bit.ly/gv2bmp.
The HandTutor system measures isolated and coordinated finger and wrist movement. The dedicated rehabilitation software allows for movement guidance to show the patient how to move their hand or prosthetic and augmented feedback to show that the prosthetic is moving. A combination of guidance and visual augmented feedback allows for learning motor movement.