The ERACLE project aims to develop a tele-cognitive rehabilitation system using IT technologies to provide rehabilitation sessions and tasks remotely for patients recovering from brain injuries at home. The system will include rehabilitation tasks targeting areas like attention, memory, and visual skills. A pilot study will observe and treat 40 patients remotely two days per week for one hour sessions. The goals are to reduce delays in treatment, reduce patient travel, and collect a large database for research by performing rehabilitation remotely at home.

1. ERACLE project : using IT technologies and tele-rehabilitation
on home assistance for cognitive rehabilitation
Subjects will be firstly recruited from a small group of patients affected by post cerebral injury. Exclusion constraint is defined by age less than 40
years, glascow outcome score between 3 and 8 and MMSE major than 23.
Baseline test:
1. MMSE
2. Token score
3. Raven Test
4. Attention matrix
Injury evaluation:
1. MIDA
2. Rivermead
3. Hamilton rating scale for depression
4. SF36
5. TMT
Results
We tested the system on local laboratories; the results lead us to start a pilot application in collaboration with Tuscany Region, Neurological
Rehabilitation Unit of Grosseto and University of Siena (Dpt di Scienze Neurologiche Neurochirurgiche e del Comportamento): forty patients
will be remotely observed and treated submitting two day per week one hour session trail task. Project is planned to finish at July 2009.
Conclusions
The system is expected to reduce time delay and patients mobility, and will perform the rehabilitation directly at home. Finally we will collect a large
database for research purposes.
Giacomo Veneri1
, Alessandra Rufa1
, Giacomo De Murtas1
, Pamela Federighi1
, Marco Tagliaferri 2
, Jacopo Semmoloni1
,
Cristina Cianchi3
, Giulia Rossi3
, Maura Pacini3
, Mauro Mancuso3
•Eye tracking & Vision Applications Lab (EVA Lab) – Department of Neurological and Behavioral Science – University of Siena
•Diritto alla Salute, Settore Assistenza Sanitaria-Regione Toscana
•Neurological Rehabilitation Unit – Az.USL9 Grosseto
Objective
The aim of the project is to develop a tele-cognitive-rehabilitation system managed by new technologies in
order to promote the home cognitive function rehabilitation [2]. This may lead to other advantages such as
the reduction of social isolation, reduction of costs for transfer or for individual rehabilitation session [1].
Methods
We developed a central web based system [3] able to provide:
1.rehabilitation tasks with a deficit specific training approach
2.online assistant able to guide the patient and to manage the specific rehabilitation session
3.social network system providing to patients a basic way to improve communication and interaction with
other patients. The training program includes task for: alertness, vigilance, viso-spatial attention [4],
selective, focused and divided attention, memory, visual search and sequencing.
ERACLE is a project funded
by Regione Toscana
ERACLE is a project funded
by Regione Toscana
1. Azy Barak and Yael Sadovskya (2008), Internet use and personal empowerment of hearing-impaired adolescents. Computers in Human Behavior Volume 24, Issue 5, September 2008, Pages 1802-
1815
2. Lathan, C., Kinsella, A., Rosen, M., Winters, J., & Trepagnier, C. (1999). Aspects of human factors engineering in home telemedicine and telerehabilitations systems. Telemedicine Journal, 5, 169-
175.
3. Vesmarovich et al., 2000 S. Vesmarovich, R.P. Hauber and M. Jones, Using telecommunication technologies to change the world for people with disabilities related to catastrophic neurological
impairment, CyberPsychology & Behavior 3 (2000), pp. 925–928.
4. G. Veneri, P. Federighi, E. Pretegiani, F. Rosini, A. Federico, A. Rufa, EVA – EYE TRACKING - STIMULUS INTEGRATED SEMI AUTOMATIC CASE BASE SYSTEM, Proceedings on WMSCI 2009
http://www.evalab.unisi.it/eracle - m.mancuso@usl9.toscana.it - rufa@unisi.it - visionlab@unisi.it
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