PORTFOLIO

Stroke is the second leading cause of death worldwide, responsible for 4.4 million (9 percent) of the total 50.5 million deaths each year. The traditional rehabilitation process is long, repetitive and monotonous and the number of patients a specialized therapist can accommodate is limited. Current rehabilitation solutions, such as primitive virtual reality therapy and medical robotic devices are unable to track patient performance at the neural level or correlate the performance objectively with respect to changes in the treatment routine. In addition, high costs, complex architectures and limited portability lead to reduced usability and performance. Hence, patients often discontinue the program due to lack of motivation and results.

Our project will introduce a novel combination and design of virtual reality and brain activity measurement techniques into one portable, easy to use system that patients can use independently, making it more compliant to the treatment program and conducive for home based rehabilitation. Objective monitoring of their performance and needs remotely by clinical personnel will facilitate quicker recovery times. The snapshots decoding real time brain activity from the EEG during training in virtual environments make it possible for the solution to be a part of the treatment process right from day 1 covering both diagnostic and therapeutic aspects.

The project introduces a novel combination and design of virtual reality, brain activity measurement and 3d technology. Monitoring of the brain activity modulated by patient’s motor performance in the different 3D environments will for the first time introduce a novel objective marker to track and modify the treatment procedure in a customized manner. The technology is based on neuro-scientific paradigms targeted at activating key brain areas from the early phases of rehabilitation. The real-time feedback the patients receive on their movements through the virtual exercises, enables accurate independent practice for patients both in the hospital and home setting and reduces therapist hours dedicated to monitoring and adjusting limb movements.

Through the project, we have developed and tested prototypes in both healthy participants and patients. Further, we have developed industrial devices conforming to the norms of the CE Mark certification for medical use. Both the software (Class B) and hardware (Class I) are ready for certification. The devices will be deployed into EU stroke centers to accumulate more clinical data to validate both economic and clinical endpoints.

We have established manufacturing partnerships with medical device producers (Medicon, Italy; MAATEL, France) to assemble the medical grade devices.

Video Ergo Sum: Manipulating Bodily Self-Consciousness: Bigna Lenggenhager, Tej Tadi, Thomas Metzinger, and Olaf Blanke (2007). Science 317 (5841), 1096;
Quantifying Effects of Exposure to the Third and First-Person Perspectives in Virtual-Reality-Based Training. Patrick Salamin*, Tej Tadi*, Olaf Blanke*, Frederic Vexo, and Daniel Thalmann. (2010) IEEE Transactions Vol.3. No.3 272-276;
Gangadhar Garipelli, Vasiliki Liakoni, Daniel Perez-Marcos, Tej Tadi. Neural correlates of reaching movements in virtual environments designed for neuro-Rehabilitation (SFN 2013).

L’AGEFI : Réhabilitation nervo-musculaire 3D. April 2010
Le Temps : La réalité virtuelle au service des personnes atteintes d'un accident vasculaire cérébral. April 2010
BILAN 2012 : Comment MindMaze a réussi à trouver son marché