Sci Ripples: September 2015

Mantis Shrimp use boxing to decide who reigns

We often see animals fight each other over mates or territory. These fights usually result in injuries to fighting individuals, unti...

Air pollution - 30.9.15

How is Volkswagen Cheating?

The US EPA or Environmental Protection Agency , recently called Volkswagen 's bluff that it was adhering to emission controls set for ...

Cat - 28.9.15

Purring cat, Healing Cat

You are on your way to an extremely important meeting and stressed to your core. You are well prepared, on time but still you feel weigh...

Backyard Scientist - 25.9.15

How fast can a ping pong ball spin?

Watching ping pong matches is a lot of fun. The precision, the pace, the spin and the concentration needed and all that happening on a ...

Feeling - 25.9.15

Can Plants 'feel'

Frog- Ooh Red, Me likie! Mimosa Plant- Argh! Stop climbing into my mouth! There was a time when plants feeling anything, even pain...

Antibacterial - 24.9.15

Your tooth paste is poisoning the world....... and you!

Putting toothpaste on a toothbrush. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) So your toothpaste has the best anti- bacterial properties there...

Genetic Diseases - 22.9.15

Huntington's Disease - Explained in a video

What is Huntington Disease? Why is is caused? What goes wrong? Can it be cured? All your questions answered in one simple video from Natu...

Boiled egg - 22.9.15

Can you unboil an egg?

For years, we were made to believe that a boiled egg cannot be unboiled. 'Something that is done cannot be undone and that'...

Air pollution - 18.9.15

Clean Space : Rewards your green efforts [App]

Don't you just hate it when people get rewarded for their polluting efforts such as buying airline tickets for short distances ...

Getting up for a walk or jog in the morning was my New Year's resolution. But I am still struggling to get myself out of bed, even in the month of September. For some weird reason our body refuses to work extra, even if it is for our own good. And strangely enough, it goes the extra mile when it has to inculcate bad habits, like staying up late to catch a football match or simply playing Warcraft till sunrise.

Probably, this is what the developers at Mira Rehab looked into when they were designing their app to get people to do physiotherapy. We all know why physiotherapy is needed and even the fact that doing it regularly means being on the fast lane to recovery. Yet, for reasons unknown to us, we shy away from the routines handed over to us or cut corners while doing them. For this we end paying, either by not being able to return to normalcy at all or taking much much longer than it should have. But, still physiotherapists around the world face the same issue that their patients are not motivated enough to complete their exercise routines.

Mira - The exergame app

Mira Rehab's app aims to increase this motivation in patients needing physiotherapy by encouraging them to play video games. Of course, these video games are of a different kind. They actually help you do your routines, without even realising them. Mira Rehab's app allows physicians to customize games for their patients in a way that it includes the routine assigned to them. So, even if two patients are playing the same game, the actions they need to do might be completely different, depending on the area of the body that needs the exercise. Mira Rehab's app also gives consideration to the vast difference in age groups that require physiotherapy. Therefore, the clinician can select different games for different patients depending on their age.

What Mira also manages to do is keep a track of patient's recovery, without the patient having to visit the clinician at regular intervals. Mira can collect this information more accurately since it s being collected when the patient is actually doing the exercises and data collected from patients can also be utilised for research since data gathering is constant and automated.

What does it need?

Using Mira is quite easy because its quick and easy to install. Unfortunately, it is the not a run of the mill app and therefore not available on Android or iOS. Instead, you need a computer with a Kinect XBox 360 Sensor, so that your movements can be tracked by the software.

Who can use Mira?

Mira is currently available only for physiotherapists who would like to use it at their clinics. For individual patients, Mira will be available from this autumn.