Sunday, October 20, 2013

Six Things You Should Know from BrainTech 2013

www.mikezachry.com/home/projects
Does Google Glass have a place in cognitive development? What is the future of games and game consoles and neuroplasticity-based therapy? Why are marketable neurosplasticity-based solutions struggling?

Here are 6 valuable take-aways from Brain­Tech Isreal 2013 by Dr. Son Pre­minger regarding neuroplasticity and cognitive training:
  1. Motivation is key for success of neuroplasticity-based therapy
  2. Brain plasticity-based therapy can have positive and negative results and must be designed and performed correctly
  3. Huge wholes exist in our capacity to translate valuable research into valuable and marketable solutions
  4. New media and gaming platforms have great potential to deliver significantly therapeutic solutions
  5. Neuroplasticity-based therapy may benefit from future development in cortex tissue transplant
  6. Defining guidelines now will help us address the inevitable future ethical issues
At the mindMender Project we live at the intersection of mobile technology and plasticity-based therapy. Download and try Traffic Controller 2 Lite to see how the iPad can leverage neuroplasticity to improve cognitive, fine and gross motors skills.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Benefits of "gamification" and Stroke Therapy


I was devastated after presenting my first therapeutic exercise project, mindMender GMS (Gross Motor Skills), to the staff at USC. They said, and I quote, "Very nice but nobody is going to use it". Defeated but thankful for their candid evaluation I immediately started investigating how to "gamify" my "boring" line drawing exercise book.

Assuming our baseline for exercising plasticity in the brain is to use increasingly difficult repetitive exercises, gamification has the potential to provide significant benefit during therapy for stroke survivors especially when included as part of a Constraint Induced Therapy (CIT) regimen.

My previous post focused on the power of "gamification" and how it provides a sense of:

  • Autonomy
  • Competence
  • Socialization
Today's post focuses on the benefits of gamification with an emphasis on mobile devices. These are:
  • Accessibility
  • Portability
  • Trackability
Probably the most significant benefit is accessibility. Providing a "gamified" exercise on a mobile tablet allows the patient to engage in therapy anytime, anyplace, anywhere. As tablets become more affordable the potential for a stroke survivor to have access to one also increases. This presents the opportunity to exercise almost anytime. And if the exercise is engaging and "gamification" is integrated well the potential increase of rate of progress could be significant.

The inherent nature of a tablet makes it extremely portable providing a vehicle to exercise anyplace, anywhere. This could be in a car, a shopping mall, or at home anywhere in the world. The patient no longer is required to visit a facility for all their therapy. Some exercises they can now do in the comfort of their own home.

Last, and certainly not any less important, is the ability to view unaltered and objective results. Again, well done gamification also track metrics that are important to clinicians and care givers. Through the computing power inherent in modern tablets a myriad of data can be collected and shared via user friendly charts and graphs and health data integrators like Validic.

The mindMender project is focused on providing well "gamified" therapeutic exercises for stroke and other brain injuries as well as for development of early eye-hand coordination skills.

Our Traffic Controller 2 game provides many of the essential gamification features. It is a line drawing game with three levels of difficulty. It tracks:
  • Speed of movement
  • Accuracy of touch
  • Accuracy of movement
Read more and download it from the Apple App Store at mindMender Projects.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

The Power of Gamification in Therapy

iPad game for stroke and brain injury recovery
Traffic Controller 2 Lite
"Gamification" is the recasting of exercises or presentations in a way that is fun and engaging. Many companies are "gamifying" training

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Certification for Medical Mobil Apps & Games


Startup Happtique is looking to establish itself as the go to clearinghouse and certification authority for medical mobile apps.  This will give physicians a single point of contact when researching apps to prescribe.  Very interesting stuff as doctors begin to prescribe apps and games as part of a prescriptive regimen.

Here's a quote from an article in the NY Times:
“It is intuitive to people, the idea of a prescription,” said Lee H. Perlman, managing director of Happtique, a subsidiary of the business arm of the Greater New York Hospital Association. Happtique is creating a system to allow doctors to prescribe apps, and Mr. Perlman suggested that a change in the way people think about medicine might be required: “We’re basically saying that pills can also be information, that pills can also be connectivity.”
If you are developing a serious game that has therapeutic or medical benefits it might be worth investigating what they're doing.

Ready or not, the future is here! 

Monday, July 8, 2013

Update - mindMender Traffic Controller 2


Traffic Controller 2 has just been submitted to the appStore and should be available any day! The greatest improvement is in the new Dashboard and new graphs. Check it out at: http://www.mikezachry.com/home/projects

Monday, May 20, 2013

The Importance Of Objective Data

Data is king, everything else are just opinions. And this is particularly true when evaluating recovery progress. Without objective data, one evaluator's "opinion" can reduce or eliminate resources completely. 

Objective data are one of the significant benefits of recovery exercise gamification. Developing games and exercise routines as a mobile app game gives us the opportunity to collect all kinds of information to more accurately assess progress and secure the resources needed to continue therapy. 

That's why in the recent release of mindMender Traffic Controller we added scoring that tracks achievements for the specific difficulty levels. We also added the capability to print or email the progress graph so a therapist or clinician can view progress. You can read more and download the latest version at http://mikezachry.com/projects/mindmender .

All the best,
Mike

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Digital Technology and Brain Health by 2020 - Are You Ready?

Here's an interesting infographic from SHARPBRAINS.  They estimate that the global digital healthcare market revenue will grow by over 500% to $6B between 2012 and 2020.  

Here's the kicker, 73% of 3,000 decision makers and early adopters agree that digital technologies can significantly compliment other behavioral and drug-based interventions.  The next 10 years are going to be very interesting....