Body

San Juan, PR — A new electromyography biofeedback device that is wearable and connects to novel smartphone games may offer people with incomplete paraplegia a more affordable, self-controllable therapy to enhance their recovery, according to a new study presented this week at the Association of Academic Physiatrists Annual Meeting in Puerto Rico.

Electromyography (recording electrical activity of muscles) biofeedback has been shown to enhance recovery of muscle control in people with incomplete spinal cord injury. However, existing biofeedback therapy devices are expensive and can be operated only by trained personnel in a laboratory environment. These factors prevent many people — up to 50,000 in the United States — from accessing the biofeedback therapy that could benefit their recoveries.

To help overcome these barriers, a team of researchers — led by R. James Cotton, M.D., Ph.D., at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab (formerly the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago) and John Rogers, Ph.D., at Northwestern University — developed an affordable, wearable-sensor biofeedback platform that allows people with incomplete paraplegia to self-dose this type of therapy.

Although many research systems can record muscle activity, very few are portable and can be worn comfortably over a span of days. Critically, none of these systems provide real-time access to the data via smartphones. The innovative system provides this functionality, allowing biofeedback via games, which can be played outside of the lab.