Balancing Act

by Jason D. Harry et al. IEEE Spectrum, April 2005 With literally millions of people around the world suffering from loss of sensitivity in mechanoreceptors, there is a huge opportunity for new technologies and therapies to improve the lives of these people and make a sizable dent in soaring health care costs. With those goals in mind, our research teams at Afferent Corp., in Providence, R.I., and Boston University have been collaborating to develop and test a new class of neurotherapy devices that have the promise of directly improving mechanical sensory function to help prevent falls in the elderly and foot injuries and amputations in people with diabetes. Read the article