MIMERICA

Acronym for Innovative Methodologies and Tools in the Rehabilitation Medicine of the Outcomes of Severe Acquired Brain Injury.

The objective of the Mimerica project concerned the definition, development and testing of innovative methodologies and tools to support clinicians in managing the rehabilitation processes of patients with severe acquired brain injury.

The following results were achieved within the Mimerica project:

ARAMIS: Research into robotics in the rehabilitation of the hemiplegic patient has been ongoing for years. Aramis, a double exoskeleton for upper limb rehabilitation in stroke patients that has been granted a European patent, has been built. Eight years of research and two years of experimentation are showing significantly better results than traditional rehabilitation;
AMI;
DSS ON PROGNOSIS SV;

TELEGCA

With the Telegca project, the S. Anna Institute set out to launch a programme aimed at defining new info-telematics services applied to the recovery of function in the victims of severe acquired cerebral palsy.

In particular, hardware and software systems were developed and tested for the provision of online health services concerning teleconsultation, tele-assistance, tele-monitoring and tele-rehabilitation.

Results:

•Procedures and HW and SW systems for telemedicine (Teleconferencing with ASP Departments sending patients; Telecare with patients at home).

NEUROSTAR

It is a project to develop advanced technologies and systems to support the processes of diagnosis, prognosis and functional recovery or damage limitation of individuals with severe acquired brain injuries GCA (vegetative states and minimally conscious states, stroke or head-brain injury outcomes) or deficits from chronic diseases of the nervous system MCSN (Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Multiple Sclerosis).

It involves the definition, development and testing in the clinical field of new techniques and methodologies and innovative robomechatronic and virtual reality systems/devices.

The results obtained are:

Optimised procedures in operating units treating patients with more or less severe CG outcomes;
Systems for analysing and processing ward data in order to gain new knowledge;
Functional MRI studies of post-stroke patients;
Robotic systems (4MO, Intellibed, MotionRehab@Home; MotionRehabLAB, etc.) and innovative devices (Copernicus, Polyphemus, SMS- SensoryMulti Stimulator) for the recovery and rehabilitation of patients with motor and cognitive-behavioural deficits).

NEUROMEASURES

Development of innovative processes and support services for the early diagnosis of motor, behavioural and mnestic disorders in Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's dementia and the measurement and optimisation of recovery/rehabilitation in patients with severe acquired brain injury and stroke.

The project aims to implement innovative processes and support services for the early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s dementia and specific motor, behavioural and/or mnestic disorders that characterise these diseases.

Neuromeasures is part of an innovative scientific framework with the aim of integrating current knowledge of biomarkers that help characterise the main clinical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s dementia with knowledge from modern neuroscience that proposes new pathophysiological scenarios.

The aim is to create new behavioural and advanced neuroimaging prototypes, based on ‘Virtual Reality’ technologies and ‘Data Fusion’ methodologies and services, with the aim of extracting diagnostic information related to the diseases under study and to rework the management of innovative processes for the early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s dementia.

The project will also focus on developing new decision support services for the early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s dementia through the use of advanced computational tools, with particular reference to Machine Learning techniques.

The expected outcome of this activity will be an innovative product of considerable relevance in clinical practice in terms of a support tool in accurate and early diagnosis processes, based on the identification of new neuroimaging, behavioural and molecular markers.