Robotic Arms and Virtual Reality To Be Topics Discussed at Rehabilitation Care Meeting
Robotic arms controlled by brain waves and virtual-reality immersion to promote physical therapy are two of the innovations to be addressed when Old Dominion University's College of Health Sciences hosts the annual meeting of the Allied Health Research Institute (AHRI) Sept. 8-9 in Norfolk. The theme of the meeting is "Translational Research in Rehabilitation Care."
The keynote speaker will be Gail Wilensky, former administrator of the U.S. Health Care Financing Administration overseeing Medicare and Medicaid, and now a senior fellow at Project HOPE. She will address policy issues affecting patients' access to rehabilitation care and products.
Other special presenters will include Andrew Schwartz, the professor of neurology at the University of Pittsburgh who pioneered the cranial implant that gives monkeys the ability to feed themselves using a robotic arm controlled by brain waves. Work is under way to adapt this sophisticated system for use by humans.
Martha Walker, chair and program director of the School of Physical Therapy at ODU's College of Health Sciences, will present her recent research on the use of virtual-reality simulations-for example, video imaging depicting a stroll in Paris-to encourage recovering stroke victims to extend their exercise sessions on a treadmill.
The list of speakers also includes Richard Oliver, board president of AHRI and dean of the Missouri University School of Health Professions, and John Short, president and chief executive of RehabCare Group, a provider of rehabilitation program management services to more than 1,200 hospitals, nursing homes and other health care facilities.
"This is a meeting of leaders," said Andrew Balas, dean of the College of Health Sciences. "Those attending will be deans, CEOs and other high-level administrators and important researchers. That we have been chosen to host this meeting is a tribute to the quality of our physical therapy program and our college as a whole."
Approximately 70 conferees are expected.
Translational research addresses ways to convert basic clinical or epidemiological health sciences into practical public health programs. The goal of this meeting is to strengthen the partnership between academia and industry in translational research related to rehabilitation care. More about the meeting can be found at http://hs.odu.edu/ahri08summit.
Balas said the meeting supports an initiative to build collaborations and partnerships between industry and academic researchers. "As academics, we have to understand that we cannot make the products that the public uses. They are made by industry," the dean added. "If we want to get our ideas and innovations out into the marketplace, we must work with industry. By the same token, many of our industrial partners cannot afford to do the kind of research that university faculties do."
The AHRI is a nonprofit organization headquartered in St. Louis and composed of employers, university researchers and other members who work to promote alliances between stakeholders in health care. One of its goals is to create a central data repository to collect and analyze clinical outcomes for the purpose of establishing industry and academic-supported, evidence-based practice patterns.
Sessions of the AHRI meeting will be held at the Ted Constant Convocation Center on the ODU campus.