Rehabilitation and cognitive stimulation with new technologies

Neuropsychologist, PhD candidate in Neuroscience and Director of Servicios neuropsicológicos del Caribe (SNC), Iván Cadena, explains how they carry out cognitive rehabilitation and stimulation with new technologies at their center in Colombia.

Servicios neuropsicológicos del Caribe (SNC) is located in northern Colombia, in the City of Cartagena. It was born from the need to provide not only assessment, but also rehabilitation to people with brain injury, whether they are children or primarily older adults.

When we refer to childhood, we note that over the past five years we have been working on learning disorders, autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit, or intellectual disability.

When speaking of older adulthood, we mean neurocognitive disorders due to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, stroke, or other neurocognitive decline.

What has interested us from the beginning, beyond assessment, is being able to offer our patients alternatives for solutions in terms of designing and implementing a neurorehabilitation plan that allows a better quality of life for them and their family.

Cognitive rehabilitation and stimulation with new technologies: brain technology

Well, at SNC we use different brain technology devices for stimulation and rehabilitation to serve the aforementioned pathologies. The devices we use are listed below:

Neurofeedback

Neurofeedback works for treating a wide range of problems and is characterized by the management of dysregulation in the distribution of brain rhythms. Through the process of visualizing and controlling brain waves it is possible to regulate the brain’s state of excitation or inhibition. This allows treating the root cause of problems directly rather than their symptoms.

Light and sound neurostimulation

Likewise, we use light and sound neurostimulation, which is carried out through a rehabilitative device of unsuspected reach and high effectiveness. It is a state-of-the-art audiovisual brain training system clinically proven. Neural waves are modified and the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms manipulate them (frequency-following response), which allows the organism to feel and think the induced state as its own. The simultaneous and coherent use of the cerebral hemispheres is stimulated through proprietary binaural and semicircular sounds.

Transcranial infrared light stimulation

Continuing the use of brain technology, we employ transcranial infrared light stimulation. It is an innovative and revolutionary neurotechnology device. A powerful device that features ultra-enhanced transcranial clusters and updated microchip LED drive technology. This leads to tripling the power density, being a refined form factor that fits a wider variety of head shapes and sizes.

Currently, this device is capable of extracting one of the largest amounts of energy from a pulsed infrared LED source, by incorporating microchip technology into the intranasal diode.

NeuronUP

But the most interesting thing we are using, and it is a powerful combination with the previous devices, is the use of the neurorehabilitation software NeuronUP.

This platform allows that once the brain has been electrically stimulated (which can also be called passive stimulation), it can be actively exercised through the platform’s various and extensive exercises. 

Its usefulness is very broad, since it achieves, among other things, stimulating the different cognitive domains and their subdomains or subprocesses.

For example, it is not only possible to exercise attention, but also sustained attention, selective attention, or alternating attention. The same goes for other neuropsychological domains or processes such as memory, executive functions, language, gnosias or praxias.

Cognitive rehabilitation and stimulation with new technologies: telerehabilitation with NeuronUP

In addition to the above, NeuronUP has been very beneficial for the center during these times of confinement, as it has allowed designing sessions with home access. The patient, in the comfort of their home, can carry out the training. Meanwhile, the professional, connected via Zoom, Google Meet or Skype, can monitor 100% of the session as if they were in the office.

Likewise, NeuronUP offers broad and comprehensive information about patients’ results. This facilitates the analysis of users’ progress and guides the professional on the path to continue in the rehabilitation process.

Benefits of NeuronUP according to our patients and their family members

There are various benefits that NeuronUP has brought to our services. Our patients, their family members and even colleagues say so. They recognize the technical, professional and scientific importance of the platform for a true comprehensive plan that allows a better quality of life for those who come to Servicios neuropsicológicos del Caribe (SNC).

There is no greater gain than the happiness drawn on the face of someone who shows positive results, and NeuronUP is an accomplice to that happiness.

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“This article has been translated. Link to the original article in Spanish:”
La rehabilitación y estimulación cognitiva con nuevas tecnologías