IEMI: Intelligent extraction of mental imagery during stroke rehabilitation

Research Group:


Status:

finished

Start date:

2017-07-01

End date:

2019-06-30

 

IEMI aims to develop intelligent algorithms for extracting a continuous measure, from the brain activity, related to Mental Imagery (MI) of a physical movement. The project specifically targets stroke survivors in their rehabilitation process towards physical recovery.

Stroke is affecting around 30 000 people in Sweden every year. Despite intensive rehabilitation, a large group continues to live with persistent disabilities. Physical rehabilitation consists of regular training with a physiotherapist to increase mobility and strength of the affected limb. During training, patients are encouraged to simultaneously imagine the trained movements. Despite a lot of research showing the importance of MI for physical recovery, a means to measure MI in real time does not yet exist.

This is where IEMI comes in. The extracted measure of mental imagery will serve as crucial decision support for: 1) physiotherapists, who will receive real-time information on the mental engagement of patients during rehabilitation, 2) stroke patients, who will receive real-time feedback to strengthen their MI and directly enhance related brain activations. In addition, collected brain activity data will serve as a basis for developing functional diagnostics tools that can serve as a support for assessing the severity of stroke and deciding appropriate strategy for rehabilitation. 

The outcomes of IEMI are expected to yield a prototype system of clinical decision support for enhanced stroke rehabilitation. Expert competences in artificial intelligence and in specialized stroke rehabilitation are merged in IEMI to present a highly innovative technology with the potential to substantially increase the quality of stroke rehabilitation.

 

PartnerType
Danderyds Sjukhus AB Municipalities and others

Elaine Åstrand, Senior Lecturer

Email: elaine.astrand@mdh.se
Room: U1-123
Phone: 021-103125