Today at 9.30 CEST dr Leandro Pecchia will held a seminar on Biomedical Engineering in low-resource settings (LRSs)

The United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals are based on the principle of “leaving no one behind”. In particular, SDG3 focuses on Health and Wellbeing, striving for equitable healthcare access, worldwide. Notwithstanding, the actual situation is still far from being equitable. Although most of the world’s population is treated in low-income countries, only a small oligarchy of high-income countries rules the medical device market, setting and following de facto standards and minimum requirements, which do not take into consideration the scarcity of resources and the harsh conditions of low-resource settings. This mismatch hinders the safe and efficient functioning of medical devices, jeopardizing the life of patients and healthcare workers.

This webinar will give an overview of the ABSPIE Lab experience in Africa, with a specific focus on clinical and biomedical engineering, and ethics.

To attend follow the link below:

https://www.dima.uniroma1.it/dima/archivionotizie/biomedical-engineering-low-resource-settings-lrss 

Tiba Vent team from Kenyatta University (Nairobi, Kenya) will present a mechanical ventilator named Tiba vent.

This group is the winner of the 2020 UN 🇺🇳 Person of the Year Award

This mechanical ventilator was designed, developed and prototyped during the first wave of COVID-19 when the whole world was entering local lockdowns.

A multidisciplinary team comprising biomedical engineers, medical doctors, software and electronic engineers teamed up to create the first ever made patient ventilator in Kenya.

Tiba vent, currently under clinical ventilation, was designed taking into consideration international standards and standards from the Kenya Bureau of standards, as well as the world health organisation’s guidelines.

This webinar presented the team of students from Kenya, as well as the innovative medical device they prototyped.

The main results from the field studies in Sub-Saharan Africa were presented, with a focus on international standards, medical locations and donations of medical devices. No video available, but more information can be found in these articles:

[1] D. Piaggio, D. Medenou, R.C. Houessouvo, L. Pecchia, Donation of Medical Devices in Low-Income Countries: Preliminary Results from Field Studies, in: International Conference on Medical and Biological Engineering, Springer, 2019, pp. 423-427.

[2] L. Di Pietro, D. Piaggio, I. Oronti, A. Maccaro, R.C. Houessouvo, D. Medenou, C. De Maria, L. Pecchia, A. Ahluwalia, A Framework for Assessing Healthcare Facilities in Low-Resource Settings: Field Studies in Benin and Uganda, Journal of Medical and Biological Engineering, (2020) 1-9.

February 8th 2018, 13:00, Room F105/F106, School of Engineering

Speaker: Rita Stagni is Associate Professor of Biomechanics at the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna. Her scientific production presently includes more than 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings. Her research activity, in cooperation with national and international scientific institutions, mainly concerns the application of measurement, modelling and control methods in movement analysis, in both physiological and assisted conditions. Recent research focused on the accurate real-time assessment of motor stability and balance in elderly and pathological subjects, with a particular reference, in the last years, to the maturation of motor control in children. She was member of the Board of the Italian Society of Gait Analysis in Clinic, 3DAHM group of the International Society of Biomechanics, member of the European Society of Biomechanics, and participated in national and international research projects as coordinator for UNIBO

Aim: As one of the so-called geriatric giants is considered, it is evident that falls represent a heavy economic and social burden, leading to a significant reduction in the quality of life in the elderly and/or pathological population. Therefore, it is easy to understand the great interest in the identification of effective methods to identify those at risk and to develop effective clinical / rehabilitative interventions aiming to reduce this risk. Unfortunately, however, extensive research and literature demonstrate how far from simple is this task; based on epidemiological evaluations, the risk of falling has a multifactorial nature, is affected by specific clinical conditions as well as by environmental conditions, potentially differing significantly from one subject to another. Both postural and motor stability are the result of the concurrent action of various functional resources.

In recent years, an increasing attention has been paid to multifactorial assessment, aiming at personalised intervention for the prevention of falls and injuries in the elderly subjects. Moreover, efficient wearable sensors have become available, allowing a constant and non-invasive monitoring of the movement during the activities of daily life. This resulted in the development and proposal of a large number of methods for the quantification of motor stability and the estimation of fall risk. The aim of this lesson is to provide an overview and a critical review of the quantitative tools proposed in recent years and based on the use of magneto-inertial sensors to summarise the advantages and the main limitations for the proper use of these instruments.

Speaker: Dr Saverio Stranges, Scientific Director of the Department of Population Health at the Luxembourg Institute of Health

Aim: this will be an interactive session addressing the main criteria and issues in inferring causal associations in epidemiological studies.

For more information Click Here