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to be applied to real patients and help them to
improve their daily life.
However certain improvements can be made to
make the device more suitable for clinical purposes.
The pulse form could be changed to an alternating
form, since a non alternating pulse can cause toxic
reaction under the electrodes because of
accumulating ions under one of the electrodes.
However for testing purposes direct current can be
used since the time of current flowing is not very
long.
The acceptance of the skin to electrical
stimulation is also nonlinear. If a microprocessor is
integrated into the design an intelligent processing of
the sensor data is possible. This would improve the
feedback. The research group presenting this paper
is currently working in processing the data from the
Sensor Unit in an intelligent way using knowledge
based systems.
The next step in our research will be the
development of a more flexible system that is taking
into account the points mentioned above. It is hoped
that patients suffering from sensory loss can have an
enormous improvement in their daily life when
using an electrocutaneous feedback system, so they
can better walk, balance and perform tasks that
require the estimation of pressure applied to the foot.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors want to thank Angel Torres Perez and
Adam Wright for their help in the design and the
manufacturing of the circuit board, as well as Poole
Hospital to provide the facilities for the testing.
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