health

It’s now way past 2010… So, where’s my jetpack? Disability research integration is not happening. Not like it needs too. I’ve seen the problem from several points of view now and feel justified in a little rant. Scientists generally hate mixing with business, but this is the reality. The business of keeping a lab open and publishing regularly is difficult and in direct conflict with the new buzzwords: “Community…

Candice explains how a paraplegic and a quadriplegic differ in exercise response.

If Dr. Andrei Krassioukov gets his way, the days of some Paralympic athletes putting their lives in danger to increase their athletic performance may be over. Despite an international ban on the practice, some Paralympic athletes with spinal cord injuries are using a dangerous technique called “boosting” to increase their blood pressure in the heat of competition. Dr. Krassioukov studies autonomic dysfunctions, which are dysfunctions in the parts of…

I’ve been following Boston Dynamics awhile now. They seem to be the most stable legs around..

Amira (able bodied and a swimmer) sets the record for women at icord and gets close to the times of a T4 para in an everyday chair. She is using Pat Anderson’s Basket Ball chair here).

Pat Anderson sets the record at 42 seconds! .. and he recovers to baseline heart rate and bloodpreesue quickly, “normally.”

a java based framework for sensors Zephyr Open is an open source code project to provide a framework for BlueTooth Physiological Sensors. Heart rate and blood pressure Monitors, gps and Wii Remotes are supported. What kind of mash-ups can you envision? Games for rehab? Distributed games and Virtual coaching? **This project is available on github, but has been replaced by by my tracks (google). With the framework is a…

Safety is an illusion. This kind of adventure just makes it very clear that you are playing with fire. Evey day we take great risks without truly knowing them, because we’d rather not know. Now jump off a cliff with only an 11mm rope to stop you from hitting the dirt… now that is about as “real” as things get. I’ve never done anything even close to this, but…

Reading about vibrator quality from a male quadriplegic seems a touch odd to you? Well, that is why I’m writing about it. After a spinal cord injury we really just want to feel normal, and the basic bodily functions are a always affected. Worse, some folks with spinal cord injuries simply cut off sexual activities because they don’t dare mess with Autonomic_dysreflexia

First VO2max tet done at UBC. My score is about as bad as you’ll ever be able to find — somewhere between an old woman and a cancer patent. But, this is something one can train, and I try to post other results to add some context.

DR. Andrei Krassioukov measures change in Blood Pressure and Heart Rate in a quadriplegic vs a paraplegic.