New Tools Help Patients Regain Senses

[calico]

I don't know if this will help anyone or not but I wanted to put it out there. Very interesting NY Times article.

Calico

New Tools Help Patients Regain Senses

[richwelsh63]

can you post article please

[Wise Young]

Rich,

Here is an excerpt from the New York Times article. People are suppose to post the link, at most an excerpt of the article, and comments or descriptions. It sounds very much like a kind of biofeedback training but using sensory inputs in the tongue to tell the brainstem that the person is level. This method is called "sensory substitution" and similar approaches have long been used to give blind people cues. Apparently, this device is nearing commercialization by Wicab, Inc. (a company formed by the University of Wisconsin) and Robert Beckman (the president of the company) predicts that the device will be available in about a year. It is being studied by other scientists.

Wise.

New Tools to Help Patients Reclaim Damaged Senses
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE

Published: November 23, 2004

Cheryl Schiltz vividly recalls the morning she became a wobbler. Seven years ago, recovering from an infection after surgery with the aid of a common antibiotic, she climbed out of bed feeling pretty good.

"Then I literally fell to the floor," she said recently. "The whole world started wobbling. When I turned my head, the room tilted. My vision blurred. Even the air felt heavy."

The antibiotic, Ms. Schiltz learned, had damaged her vestibular system, the part of the brain that provides visual and gravitational stability. She was forced to quit her job and stay home, clinging to the walls to keep from toppling over.

But three years ago, Ms. Schiltz volunteered for an experimental treatment - a fat strip of tape, placed on her tongue, with an array of 144 microelectrodes about the size of a postage stamp. The strip was wired to a kind of carpenter's level, which was mounted on a hard hat that she placed on her head. The level determined her spatial coordinates and sent the information as tiny pulses to her tongue.

The apparatus, called a BrainPort, worked beautifully. By "buzzing" her tongue once a day for 20 minutes, keeping the pulses centered, she regained normal vestibular function and was able to balance.

Wise.