Effects of Band Therapy Using Music on Grasping Power, Depression, and Personal Relationships in Nursing-Home-Dwelling Elderly Individuals

The current study examined the effects of band therapy using music on grasping power, depression, and personal relationships among residents of a nursing home. Thirty subjects participated in the study. The band therapy included greetings, warm-up exercises with music, singing with dance, playing instruments, closing speech, and stretching with background music. Band therapy was held for 40 minutes once per week, for a total of four sessions, in the activity room of the nursing home. Findings showed that grasping power, depression, and personal relationships were improved at posttest, but the differences were not statistically significant. A better study design to compare the effects of band therapy with the other group, and a more simple and repeated intervention for the elderly to follow without stress might be necessary.

Spontaneous Spinal Subdural Hematoma Developed After Weightlifting: A case Report and Review of Literature

Spontaneous spinal subdural hematoma is a rare disease. Several predisposing factors are reported including impaired clotting due to therapeutic anti-coagulation or hematologic disorder, vascular anom-aly, intraspinal tumor, and iatrogenic causes such as lumbar puncture or spinal anesthesia.We report a rare case of spontaneous spinal subdural hematoma developed after weightlifting in a healthy young man treated with conservative treatment.

Ultra-stable and tough bioinspired crack-based tactile sensor for small legged robots

For legged robots,collecting tactile information is essential for stable posture and efficient gait.However,mounting sensors on small robots weighing less than 1 kg remain challenges in terms of the sensor’s durability,flexibility,sensitivity,and size.Crackbased sensors featuring ultra-sensitivity,small-size,and flexibility could be a promising candidate,but performance degradation due to crack growing by repeated use is a stumbling block.This paper presents an ultra-stable and tough bio-inspired crack-based sensor by controlling the crack depth using silver nanowire(Ag NW)mesh as a crack stop layer.The Ag NW mesh inspired by skin collagen structure effectively mitigated crack propagation.The sensor was very thin,lightweight,sensitive,and ultra-durable that maintains its sensitivity during 200,000 cycles of 0.5%strain.We demonstrate sensor’s feasibility by implementing the tactile sensation to bio-inspired robots,and propose statistical and deep learning-based analysis methods which successfully distinguished terrain type.

Spider-inspired tunable mechanosensor for biomedical applications

The recent advances of wearable sensors are remarkable but there are still limitations that they need to be refabricated to tune the sensor for target signal.However,biological sensory systems have the inherent potential to adjust their sensitivity according to the external environment,allowing for a broad and enhanced detection.Here,we developed a Tunable,Ultrasensitive,Nature-inspired,Epidermal Sensor(TUNES)that the strain sensitivity was dramatically increased(GF~30k)and the pressure sensitivity could be tuned(10–254 kPa^(−1))by preset membrane tension.The sensor adjusts the sensitivity to the pressure regime by preset tension,so it can measure a wide range(0.05 Pa–25 kPa)with the best performance:from very small signals such as minute pulse to relatively large signals such as muscle contraction and respiration.We verified its capabilities as a wearable health monitoring system by clinical trial comparing with pressure wire which is considered the current gold standard of blood pressure(r=0.96)and home health care system by binary classification of Old’s/Young’s pulse waves via machine learning(accuracy 95%).