We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
SMARTPHONES COULD SOON be used to help patients get the most from physiotherapy exercises at home.
Research carried out by the Centre for Sensor Web Technology (CLARITY) in UCD is exploring how the communications technology we use in our everyday lives can be put to even further practical use.
In a project led by Professor Brian Caulfield, smartphones are used to monitor physical movement and a person’s behaviour, in order to collect data and advise on what and how they should be doing better in their physical activity routines.
The research has led to a new app which uses a smartphone as a kinetic motion sensor to monitor how a patient is carrying out a physio exercise at home. It detects if the correct position is being used and then creates feedback to advise the patient on how to correct their movement to get the best possible effect out of the exercise.
It is hoped that the app will go into beta clinical testing with a major physio company in Ireland so that ultimately it will become an inexpensive and effective tool for people to use at home, in order to get the best results from physical rehab.
Have a look at this video from UCDInnovation which shows the smartphone-as-sensor in action (and its application in elite athlete training, too):
via UCDInnovation/Youtube
Physiotherapist Oonagh Giggins explains how the sensor might work for a patient:
I know that when you give patients exercises to do at home, they either forget how to do these exercises correctly or don’t bother to do them at all. So (this app) uses a smartphone as a sensor which, when strapped to the leg for example, it measures the angle of the leg with respect to gravity so if the patient does not perform exercises properly, the app on the phone recognises this and provides feedback to the patient to correct the movement.
CLARITY is now part of the countrywide INSIGHT Centre which gets funding from the Science Foundation Ireland. If you’re a long-time TheJournal.ie reader, you might be familiar with CLARITY as researchers there powered our Twitter Tracker tool during the last general election, which helped us track sentiment expressed on Twitter towards politicial parties and individual candidates themselves.
The Twitter Tracker was noted by the Nieman Journalism Lab in Harvard University as “a socialization of news that is gathering momentum worldwide”. So now.
#ge11 TwitterTracker/TheJournal.ie/CLARITY
Gives me a great idea for matching wedding flowers to bridesmaids dresses!!
@Brianog2- dont do that!! The food dye ends up staining dresses! I wanted royal blue flowers for my wedding & as royal blue doesn’t occur naturally in nature, white flowers dyed was an option but my florist freaked out & said no, she’d see too many dresses destroyed by people dying white flowers!
A far better way to get kids interested in science would be to involve some sort of explosion.
That’s safe and easy to do with some breadsoda and water.
And vinegar Dermot.
Mentos and coke either
I forgot the vinegar! Doh!
A nice idea is splitting the stems of the flower and putting half in one colour and half in another colour, its a little bit more impressive.
There are thousands of simple experiments to do with small kids, great for getting them interested in science.
I remember doing this experiment in 1st class many moons ago.
My science teacher did this with red dye in a geranium plant so you could see every stem and leaf highlighted in red- fantastic!
Getting my sons ‘hotwires’ and a ‘microscope set’ for xmas so they can experiment with technology and science. At 9 and 8 they should be old enough to do it themselves.
Oh that reminds me I forgot to get a chemistry set…
I put myself in hospital for 10 days with a chemistry set when I was a kid.Magnesium tape is a basterd when mixed with phos. Happy days indeed.Still have the scars.
*Not being sarcastic. Just keep an eye on the kid.Some of those chemicals can burn to the bone.
I have done this with kids at school , great experiment!
have your say