ABSTRACT
Over fourteen million people suffer from neuromuscular diseases in the UK such as strokes, spinal cord injuries, and Parkinson's disease etc. That means at least one in six people in the UK are living with one or more neurological conditions. In order for patients to return to normal life sooner, a rigorous rehabilitation process is needed. In hospitals, physiotherapists and neurological experts prescribe specific neurorehabilitation exercises. In most cases, patients need to schedule an appointment to receive treatment in a hospital or to have physiotherapists visit them at home. The number of neuromuscular patients has increased, resulting in longer hospital waiting times. In particular, during COVID-19, patients were not allowed to visit hospitals or have physiotherapists visit them due to government restrictions. Online guides for personalised and custom rehabilitation therapy for joint spasticity and stiffness are also not available. This paper reports the development of an IoT-based prototype system that monitors and records joint movements using sensory footwear (consisting of FSR and IMU sensors) and Kinect sensors. In addition, a prototype web portal is also being developed to record performance data during exercises at home and interact with clinicians remotely. A pilot study has been conducted with six healthy individuals and test results show that there is a strong correlation between Kinect data and FSR data in terms of coordination between joint movements. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Current engineering job sectors do not only demand theoretical technical knowledge but also hands-on skills and critical thinking to ensure that engineering graduates are adaptive to the evolving and innovative world. Hence, several engineering modules at Canterbury Christ Church University have incorporated CDIO projects to integrate professional skills into the course. Following the UK government COVID-19 lockdown guidelines in 2020, traditional oncampus face-to-face learning was restricted at UK universities and colleges;therefore, students faced several challenges from academic and wellbeing perspectives. To overcome the challenges and enhance those professional skills through CDIO projects whilst following COVID-19 restrictions, blended learning was implemented via reconfiguring the delivery and implementation of the CDIO projects through an optimal arrangement of online and on-campus sessions. Online CDIO practical sessions were dedicated to students for transforming their ideas into feasible designs and solutions whereas students developed the hardware prototype during the face-to-face sessions. The learning framework was inclusive with additional support for disabled students with accessible learning materials and supportive technical and professional training. The above strategy also helped students to complete their online assessment to achieve the required professional attributes and manage online/blended groupbased tasks appropriately. Their outcome of the CDIO project was impressive and the quality of those projects is comparable to final-year projects. The performance of the students was also encouraging as the first-time overall pass rate is relatively high (86%) for a cohort of 75 students where average marks are around 59.6 and standard deviation is around 18.5. The high success rate was achieved in all areas of the cohort, for example the pass rate in BAME students was 93.75%, in female students it was 98.43%, and in disabled students it was 98.43%. A survey on students' experience shows that they benefited highly from the sessions related to the CDIO project. © CDIO 2022.All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
COVID-19 pandemic adversely challenged the healthcare system in an unprecedented way. Access to neurorehabilitation programme for patients with stroke and other neurological disability was severely restricted including shutting down of most community-based and outpatient facilities. There is hardly any organised virtual programme of exploring any potential of stretching and exercising of muscles needed in a rehabilitation programme. There is an impetus to innovate service developments, while the risks and fear of contracting the coronavirus remain prevalent. We propose a framework for developing a novel tele-neurorehabilitation system that will guide the patients to perform therapeutic exercises, as proposed by the clinicians, remotely. The system will allow patients to directly interact with doctors through a secure audio–video online portal. Wearable motion tracking sensors will be integrated within a hardware-based home setting for gathering performance data live from patients while they are performing exercises. The paper describes the design components of the framework justifying the tools, hardware, and protocols required to implement a secure online portal for tele-neurorehabilitation. Specifications of the core architectural layers have been reported. Some preliminary work demonstrates how the framework specifies capturing and analysing of physiological data using wearable sensors, as well as displaying of gait parameters on a software dashboard. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
ABSTRACT
The ongoing pandemic of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has killed millions across the globe. This paper hypothesizes anaerobic glycolysis and dehydrogenase enzymes as the focal points of SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis that ensure virus survival and replication in humans and the reservoir host bat. Metabolic alterations in hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and higher reliance on anaerobic glycolysis for energy generation make males and aged people more vulnerable to the disease. The bat has a low level of vitamin D, greater metabolic dependence on anaerobic glycolysis, and low dehydrogenase activities which might predispose this mammal to persistent infection. Similarities of the bat metabolism with the metabolic changes brought by SARS-CoV-2 in humans suggest possible evolution of the coronavirus targeting the host metabolic processes for its replication and survival. Further research on host-pathogen interactions at the metabolism levels would unravel the pathogenesis of coronavirus and several other viruses. © 2021, Exploratory Animal and Medical Research. All Rights Reserved.