Ink Spells | Moterum Blog Posts – Explaining the Benefits of New Technology to the People Who Need It Most
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Moterum Blog Posts – Explaining the Benefits of New Technology to the People Who Need It Most

Moterum Blog Posts – Explaining the Benefits of New Technology to the People Who Need It Most

Moterum is building innovative, technological solutions designed to help stroke survivors improve their gait, even years after a stroke. Their early trials have produced some exciting results, and the more you dig into them, the more there is to discover. They asked us to research and write informative blog posts about their newest device in a “business casual” voice, balancing technical accuracy with accessibility.

Moterum Featured at HIMSS19

Moterum to Be Featured at HIMSS19 in the Healthcare of the Future Pavilion

The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. HIMSS. It might not roll off the tongue, but their annual conference is the leading conference on health information and technology. More than 45,000 health professionals from over 90 countries gather each year to learn about the most exciting technological advancements coming down the pike, and this year, Moterum will be featured in the Healthcare of the Future pavilion.

Throughout the conference, held from February 11-15 in the Orange County Convention Center of Orlando, Florida, the Healthcare of the Future pavilion will present a collection of profoundly innovative medical devices, many of which are now in the clinical trial phase of development. Moterum is proud to be featured among this distinguished list of companies and technologies that are poised to transform the healthcare industry.

Why did they choose the iStride™ System? Because it’s designed to take advantage of cutting-edge technology.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud technologies stand at the forefront of a medical revolution. You’ve probably heard about artificial intelligence, often shortened to AI. This is the general name for the field of computer science that tries to make computers act more like people, from recognizing faces to mimicking human speech. Machine learning is a critical subset of AI, and it’s exactly what it sounds like—trying to build computers that can learn.

If that sounds like science fiction, well, it isn’t. Not anymore. There are already computers that have learned to win games against human opponents through trial and error. The thing that has computer scientists all agog here is that the computers were not directly programmed to win. They were programmed to learn how to win in the same way that people learn—by trying different things and finding out what works. While video games might be fun and flashy, imagine the possibilities if this same technology were applied to medical advancement.

So what about cloud technology? Isn’t that the thing that lets people collaborate on projects and synch their calendars? It is that, but it’s a lot more than that, too. Humanity’s greatest achievements are made possible by teamwork. You don’t put a human being on the moon by standing in a field by yourself and staring into the sky. You do it by gathering mathematicians, physicists, chemists, engineers, and a whole host of dedicated souls, including a few who just might be brave enough to escape the atmosphere and touch the cosmos.

Most importantly, you do it together. Cloud technology allows patients and their caregivers to collaborate in teams on a daily basis, even if the patient doesn’t live anywhere near a rehab facility. Over time, it also allows a tremendous amount of data to be gathered about what does and doesn’t work. Computers can use those statistics to help human caregivers craft the very best rehab program for each individual, pushing areas like stroke rehabilitation to new levels of care that have never before been possible.

Presenting the iStride™ System — The Future of Stroke Gait Rehabilitation

Designed to assist stroke victims in improving their mobility and independence by rehabilitating their gait, even years after a stroke, the iStride™ System will incorporate all three—artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud technologies—bringing the most powerful tools of the information age to the future of stroke gait rehabilitation.

The iStride™ System will be easy to use at home, designed to be an extension of a patient’s efforts in a rehab center and connecting to the cloud to track results in collaboration with a rehab team. Over time, those results will help fine tune an individual’s rehab program for faster, better results. In fact, in clinical trials the iStride™ System has already shown significant results for stroke survivors many years after a stroke, often when they are no longer even receiving traditional therapy.

We’ll be in the Healthcare of the Future pavilion throughout the conference (booth #5359), and we’ll be presenting a special session about the iStride™ System on Tuesday, February 12, from 11:15 – 11:35 AM. For more information on the iStride™ device or our clinical trials in the home setting, visit https://moterum.com/clinical-trials/.  The Moterum iStride™ device, helping the world’s stroke survivors relearn how to walk one step at a time.™

Step Tracking Functionality

Stroke Recovery and Rehabilitation Through Step Tracking—Why Step Count Can Make a Difference

One of the most important aspects of stroke recovery and rehabilitation is, quite simply, continuing to work the program. Especially once you get home. But it’s a frustrating process. In fact, stroke recovery and rehabilitation is so frustrating that the National Stroke Association devotes entire sections of its Stroke Recovery Guide to dealing with emotional changes after a stroke, up to and including depression.

But that same guide is titled HOPE for a reason. There are things that help. And one of the most important is working toward measurable goals.

What makes a goal measurable?

Measurable goals are specific. “Getting around more,” for example, might be what you ultimately want, but it isn’t specific enough to be measurable. By contrast, goals like “I will walk from my bedroom to the kitchen and back every morning,” or “I will walk once around the block twice each week” are measurable because you can track how well you’re doing and measure your rehab progress.

Organizations like the Toronto Stroke Networks recommend measurable goals for stroke recovery and rehabilitation because tracking your progress can help you stick with it. And it can help your recovery team adjust your rehab regimen so you keep progressing instead of hitting a plateau and stalling out.

Step count is extremely measurable.

When it comes to stroke recovery and rehabilitation, counting steps is a highly specific and measurable goal. Did you take five steps today? A dozen? A hundred? Tracking your steps every day can provide a visible graph of your progress over time. It’s a useful tool for yourself, and for your rehabilitation team—to help you stay on target.

So does that mean you have to count those steps yourself and write them down every day? Fortunately, no. There are tools available in the modern world to do that for you. Fitness watches are a popular training option, but they don’t literally count steps. They use algorithms that involve guesswork. Wareable, for example, noted that “Anything from a bumpy car ride to a plush carpet can throw off the accuracy of your fitness tracker.”

That’s why we’re building our iStride™ device with step tracking capability.

Whether in a rehab facility or at home, the iStride™ device will keep track of every single step you take on the device, and it will upload those steps to the cloud (assuming it has access to the Internet). In short, it will count every step of your rehab session and track them for you, so that you—and your stroke recovery and rehabilitation team—can see exactly how well you’re doing.

According to organizations like the National Stroke Association, tracking your rehab progress is an important part of keeping it moving forward. If you’re stuck, you’ll know it’s time to make some adjustments. And if you’re meeting your goals consistently, you’ll know it’s time to set some new ones!

For more information on the iStride™ device or our clinical trials in the home setting, visit https://moterum.com/clinical-trials/.  The Moterum iStride™ device, helping the world’s stroke survivors relearn how to walk one step at a time.™

Enabling Rehab Sessions at Home

Why Frequent Rehab Sessions Are So Important in Learning to Walk After a Stroke

Can you walk again after a stroke? Will you be able to walk as well as you want to? If you’re asking yourself these questions, you’re not alone. While no one can promise you results, there are several things you can do to improve the odds. One of the most important is making sure you work your rehab program consistently.

Can you rewire your brain after a stroke?

When the brain is damaged by a stroke, some of that damage can be irreversible. But research conducted at Johns Hopkins, as well as other studies in the same vein, have shown that healthy parts of the brain can learn to take over some of the functions that the damaged parts used to handle. This is known as neuroplasticity—the brain’s amazing capacity to learn and adapt.

Throughout our lives, the brain creates new pathways, allowing us to take in new information. Allowing us to learn. This can be as simple as remembering the name of a new acquaintance or as complex as a college education, but that same ability to learn information extends to learning how to walk again. The brain is capable, at least to some extent, of rewiring itself and creating new pathways to regain motor functions.

Why repetition matters.

The process of rewiring the brain does not happen overnight. It takes practice. New pathways are a bit like trial runs. If they aren’t used and reused, they will fade away. But if they’re used over and over, they will gain in strength until they become habit. Some recent stroke recovery research suggests that the more repetitions you can do per rehab session, and the more often you conduct those sessions, the more functionality you’re likely to recover.

But that kind of repetition can be hard to achieve after a stroke, especially once you go home. Getting to a rehab center even a few times a week can be difficult, let alone getting there every day. And practicing several times a day is basically out of the question unless your rehab routine is one you can do on your own.

That’s why we’re making sure the iStride™ System can be used in the comfort of your own home.

If there’s one thing that’s abundantly clear about stroke rehabilitation, a rehab routine that you can’t actually do is no help at all. That’s why we focus on technological solutions that are more than just innovative. They’re practical.

The iStride™ System will be easy to use at home, designed to be an extension of your efforts in a rehab center, letting you use your home’s internet connection to track your results and share them with your rehab team no matter where that team might be. In fact, in clinical trials the iStride™ System has shown significant results for stroke survivors many years after a stroke, often when they are no longer even receiving traditional therapy. You can use it to practice as much as you want, as often as you want, within smart clinical boundaries, giving you your best chance of achieving real, measurable improvement.

For more information on the iStride™ device or our clinical trials in the home setting, visit https://moterum.com/clinical-trials/.  The Moterum iStride™ device, helping the world’s stroke survivors relearn how to walk one step at a time.™

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