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Aspects of Ambient Assisted Living and Its Applications
Published in B.K. Tripathy, J. Anuradha, Internet of Things (IoT), 2017
Cognitive architecture uses a distributed intelligent system for controlling and decision-making of an ambient intelligence system (Peter Ivanov et al. 2015). Neurodegenerative diseases (Antonio Coronato and Giuseppe De Pietro 2012) are progressive and very hard to diagnose in its early stages. Progressive impairment in the activities of daily living, as well as cognitive deterioration, leads to an increase in patient dependency. Neuropsychiatric symptoms are common features and include psychosis (delusions and hallucinations), depressive mood, anxiety, irritability/lability, apathy, euphoria, dis-inhibition, agitation/aggression, aberrant motor activities, sleep disturbance, and eating disorder (Segal-Gidan et al. 2011). In particular, cognitive impaired patients need constant monitoring to ensure their well-being and that they do not harm themselves. Additionally, they have a tendency to wander and misplace objects. Situation awareness requires the environment be able to analyze the behavior of patients with cognitive impairments, which is extremely challenging. Indeed, traditional behavioral and situation analysis techniques assume “rational” behaviors, in the sense that behaviors are led by clear goals, and rely on matching the observed activities with predefined behavioral patterns (Ye et al. 2012). The cognitive sciences began as an intellectual movement in the 1950s, called the cognitive revolution, arguably initiated by Noam Chomsky. Cognitive science is mainly concerned with artificial intelligence, attention, knowledge and processing of language, learning and development, memory, perception and action, and consciousness.
Noninvasive vagus nerve stimulation in Parkinson’s disease: current status and future prospects
Published in Expert Review of Medical Devices, 2021
Hilmar P. Sigurdsson, Rachael Raw, Heather Hunter, Mark R. Baker, John-Paul Taylor, Lynn Rochester, Alison J. Yarnall
Pharmacological intervention forms the mainstay treatment for many neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders, but this approach carries unwanted side effects. Non-pharmacological alternatives such as electrical stimulation used mostly as an adjunct therapy, has gained considerable interest. Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is a neuromodulation technique involving invasive surgical implantation of a generator subcutaneously, providing direct electrical stimulation of the left cervical vagus nerve [1–3]. Implantable VNS (iVNS) sends intermittent electrical currents through a wire wrapped around the vagus nerve. It is more common that the left vagus nerve is stimulated due to the right vagus nerve having greater connections to the heart [1]. The VNS device conveys signals through neural impulses to the central nervous system (CNS) [1]. iVNS is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an adjunct treatment for drug-resistant epilepsy [4] and in patients with treatment-resistant depression [5]; iVNS is also approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the latter. Recent randomized controlled trials have additionally shown the potential benefits of iVNS in upper limb motor recovery after stroke when stimulation is paired with rehabilitation therapy [6].
A semiparametric method for estimating the progression of cognitive decline in dementia
Published in IISE Transactions on Healthcare Systems Engineering, 2018
Xiaoxia Li, Canan Bilen-Green, Kambiz Farahmand, Linda Langley
Our study examined 20 risk factors that were identified in previous medical literature (Fig. 2). The time-constant variables include duration since the onset (time), sex, years of education, and onset age. The time-varying variables are vascular health conditions and neuropsychiatric symptoms. These factors are also available in the NACC UDS database. Duration, education level, and onset age are derived variables that were created from the dataset. Vascular health conditions included heart attack/cardiac arrest, transient ischemic attack, atrial fibrillation, stroke, and diabetes. The neuropsychiatric symptoms covered 12 domains: delusions, hallucinations, agitation, depression, anxiety, elation/euphoria, apathy/indifference, disinhibition, irritability, aberrant motor behavior, nighttime behavior, and changes in appetite or the consumption of certain foods.