MYO – A pretty amazing gesture control armband

MYO is for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). For patients, it can be difficult to quantify how their condition fluctuates over short periods.

MYO was created by scientists at the University of California Faculty of Medicine in San Diego. Designed mainly for gesture control of electronic devices, this cuff is normally worn on the arm. It is equipped with accelerometers, gyroscopes and surface electromyography electrodes. These detect electrical nerve impulses through the skin.

The MYO cuff has been tested on 117 MS patients; as well as a control group of 30 healthy people. In an exercise that took less than five minutes a day, MYO was worn on the forearm or calf. The person performing respectively 20 taps of the fingers or feet. This process was carried out on the four members, the data being transmitted wirelessly to a neighboring computer for analysis.

Compared to "benchmark" clinical methods, the technique has proven to be reliable for detecting small, short-term changes; in factors such as motor function and muscle strength. A larger study is now planned, as well as the development of more specialized software.

“We currently lack reliable measures of the subtle progression of MS disability over short time intervals. Said Dr. Jennifer Graves, lead author of an article on the study.

"The development of tools to reliably capture the progression of MS. In six to twelve months instead of three to five years, this will accelerate the development of drugs for the most debilitating forms of MS. " A real advance in the field.

The study was published in the journal Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology.

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