Sergio Albiol

• PhD
• Professor (Associate) at University of Zaragoza

Background Epileptic encephalopathy (EE) is defined as the presence of frequent epileptiform activity that adversely impacts development, typically causing the slowing or regression of developmental skills, and is usually associated with frequent seizures. One of the main disturbances in EE is in the coordination of the upper extremities and hands....

Research on affective communication for socially assistive robots has been conducted to enable physical robots to perceive, express, and respond emotionally. However, the use of affective computing in social robots has been limited, especially when social robots are designed for children, and especially those with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). So...

Center-of-pressure (CoP) displacements play a key role in studies assessing postural stability. The accepted instrument to measure CoP trajectories is the force platform, but pressure-sensitive mats (PSMs) are an alternative composed of a matrix of sensitive cells. A typical cell comprises two electrodes with piezoresistive material in between, whi...

Computational thinking (CT) has been a topic of interest in research, not only in the field of computer science, but also in education, since it allows the development of a set of competencies in the child related to problem-solving and decision-making. However, few studies on CT are focused on children with disabilities. Developing computational t...

EEG signals are an important tool for monitoring the brain activity of a person, but equipment, expertise and infrastructure are required. EEG technologies are generally expensive, thus few people are normally able to use them. However, some low-cost technologies are now available. One of these is OPENBCI, but it seems that it is yet to be widely e...

Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) are a new, non-traditional way to interact with digital information using a physical environment. Therefore, TUIs connect a physical set of objects that can be explored and manipulated. TUI can be interconnected over the Internet, using Internet of Things (IoT) technology to monitor a child's activities in real-time....

A Tangible User Interface (TUI) is a new interaction option that uses nontraditional input and output elements. A tangible interface thus allows the manipulation of physical objects using digital information. The exploration and manipulation of physical objects is a factor to be considered in learning in children, especially those with some kind of...

Virtual cues are a complement for improving quality of life in Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) patients. In the last few years, the high incidence and high costs of this pathology have produced new technological methodologies that helps alleviate motor and cognitive disorders. The use of low-cost and portable systems together with Virtual Environments...

Virtual cues are a complement for improving quality of life in Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) patients. In the last few years, the high incidence and high costs of this pathology have produced new technological methodologies that helps alleviate motor and cognitive disorders. The use of low-cost and portable systems together with Virtual Environments...

Children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) have motor and cognitive disorders that make it difficult for them to perform activities of daily living (ADL). Virtual Rehabilitation (VR) is a relatively novel research line that tackles motor and cognitive abilities. Sensory feedback together with Virtual Environments (VE) enriches and improves motor control in...

Emotional and behavior alterations are common symptoms in children with Cerebral Palsy (CP). Mental health disorders in this pathology are mainly stress, anxiety, and depression. Since there is a strong relationship between behavior and emotion symptoms, children with CP show difficulties to communicate in terms of family, peer, and attention signs...

Falls are a common alteration in older community dwellers and represent a serious problem for these dwellers. With a high incidence in this type of population and high medical costs to treat them, the traditional sessions need to enrich with low-cost alternatives. Virtual Rehabilitation is a novel research area that provides playful, motivating and...

Falls are a common alteration in older community dwellers and represent a serious problem for these dwellers. With a high incidence in this type of population and high medical costs to treat them, the traditional sessions need to enrich with low-cost alternatives. Virtual Rehabilitation is a novel research area that provides playful, motivating and...

Emotional and behavior alterations are common symptoms in children with Cerebral Palsy (CP). Mental health disorders in this pathology are mainly stress, anxiety, and depression. Since there is a strong relationship between behavior and emotion symptoms, children with CP show difficulties to communicate in terms of family, peer, and attention signs...

New emerging technologies have proven their efficacy in aiding people in their rehabilitation. The tests that are usually used to evaluate usability (in general) or user satisfaction (in particular) of this technology are not specifically focused on virtual rehabilitation and patients. The objective of this contribution is to present and evaluate t...

Children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) have difficulty performing correct movements for activities of daily living. Impairments in the first stages of the birth produce motor disorders of the neuromuscular system. Specific goals in traditional rehabilitation are based on the outcomes obtained in the Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) and...

It is presented a multipoint virtual goniometer developed through a Kinect 2 sensor, it can detect in real time the angle of the upper limb joints, therefore helping physiatrists to determine the human body movement, the system was compared with a conventional goniometer which presents a standard deviation of 2.38, therefore shows that the instrume...

It is presented a 3D Virtual system with a haptic device that allows the interaction between a user and a virtual environment developed in Unity3D. This System was designed for rehabilitation of paretic hands in adult people with Stroke; the virtual environment was developed considering a daily life’s activity (watering plants in pots). The system...

Objectives: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor clinical alterations among others. Postural problems have serious consequences for patients, not only limiting their daily life but also increasing some risks, like the risk of fall. Inadequate postural control and postural instability is a majo...

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) happens when there is a compression of the median nerve between the forearm and the hand. This disorder causes an influence on basic and instrumental Activities of Daily Living. The motor disruptions are weakness muscle, tingling, and heaviness in the hand. The main alteration that suffer subjects with CTS is pain. To a...

Acquired Brain Injury is one of the leading causes of death in the world. The main alterations are postural control, balance, and gait disorders, that limit activities of daily living. Therapies in traditional gross/fine rehabilitation of upper limbs are: constraint-induced movement therapy, hand splints, or fine motor coordination. Groundbreaking...

One of the main neurological disorders in children worldwide is cerebral palsy (CP). The main alterations are postural control, balance, and gait disorders, and difficulty in performing activities of daily living. Techniques in traditional rehabilitation are focused on therapies such as constraint-induced movement, strength training, and functional...

Acquired Brain Injury is one of the leading causes of death in the world. The main alterations are postural control, balance, and gait disorders, that limit activities of daily living. Therapies in traditional gross/fine rehabilitation of upper limbs are: constraint-induced movement therapy, hand splints, or fine motor coordination. Groundbreaking...

Objectives: To critically identify studies that evaluate the effects of cueing in virtual motor rehabilitation in patients having different neurological disorders and to make recommendations for future studies. Methods: Data from MEDLINE®, IEEExplore, Science Direct, Cochrane library and Web of Science was searched until February 2015. We includ...

One of the main neurological disorders in children worldwide is cerebral palsy (CP). The main alterations are postural control, balance, and gait disorders, and difficulty in performing activities of daily living. Techniques in traditional rehabilitation are focused on therapies such as constraint-induced movement, strength training, and functional...

Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a neurological disorder with a large number of motor and non-motor alterations that produce an impact on basic and instrumental Activities of Daily Living. These motor disorders are categorized by tremors, rigidity, bradykinesia, and postural control. Other types of alterations that are characteristic of PD ar...

This work brings together the emerging virtual reality techniques and the natural user interfaces to offer new possibilities in the field of rehabilitation. The tool has been developed based on a low cost device (Microsoft Kinect T) connected to a personal computer. It provides patients having Parkinson Disease (PD) with a motivating way to perform...

The relation between Computer Science and Information System lies in the fact that when a specific technology and tools are needed to solve problems, Computer Scientists design the tools whereas Information Systems professionals then apply the tools to achieve the maximum benefit for their particular organizations or tasks. In this work we have stu...

Short-term memory can be defined as the capacity for holding a small amount of information in mind in an active state for a short period of time. Although some instruments have been developed to study spatial short-term memory in real environments, there are no instruments that are specifically designed to assess visuospatial short-term memory in a...

Introduction: This article is part of the Focus Theme of Methods of Information in Medicine on "New Methodologies for Patients Rehabilitation". Objectives: For Guillain-Barré patients, motor rehabilitation programs are helpful at the onset to prevent the complications of paralysis and in cases of persistent motor impairment. Traditional motor re...

Background: The methods used for the motor rehabilitation of patients with neurological disorders include a number of different rehabilitation exercises. For patients who have been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), the performance of motor rehabilitation exercises is essential. Nevertheless, this rehabilitation may be tedious, negatively infl...

Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is a disability with a high worldwide incidence that requires the assistance of a multidisciplinary team of clinic specialists. Motor disorders in patients of this type include dysfunctions in upper limbs, arm-hand impairments, spasticity, and functionalities that patients need to recover in order to perform the basic an...

Patients that suffer from Parkinson Disease (PD) have different symptoms such as tremors, stiffness and slowness in the execution of first movements and absence of balance control. This paper introduces the concept of wording alliance within a virtual rehabilitation system for Parkinson Disease (PD) patients. On one hand, the use of serious games i...

Acquired brain injury (ABI) is one of the main problems of disability and death in the world. Its incidence and survival rate are increasing annually. Thus, the number of chronic ABI patients is gradually growing. Traditionally, rehabilitation programs are applied to postacute and acute patients, but recent publications determine that chronic patie...

REOVIEM is a system that use the potencial of virtual reality (VR) and natural user interfaces (NUI) to offer to patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) an intuitive and motivating way to perform several motor rehabilitation exercise. Moreover, REMOVIEM offer to the therapists a new motor rehabilitation tool that it allows control the rehabilitation...

this paper presents a conceptual cloud-based framework with virtual and augmented reality support named “CRehab” for the management of rehabilitation processes. Studies show that rehabilitation wards, staff, patients, and families need systems that tackle administration, personal communication, and patient motivation processes effectively. To this...

Usability, acceptance and security of use are key factors in the validation of Virtual Rehabilitation system. Current literature offers different questionnaires for this purpose, but many of them do not consider some important issues and other are inadequate for patients. In this paper, we present SEQ (Suitability Evaluation Questionnaire) a novel...

Guillain-Barre syndrome is an inflammatory polyradiculoneuropathy where the etiology is not clear. Some of the most important problems in this type of syndrome are balance and gait disorders. Traditional rehabilitation includes exercises such as proper limb positioning, posture, orthotics, and activities that patients carry out in daily living (ADL...

Learning models based on competences facilitate the integration of students into the professional world, allowing further integration into the society, where learning is a necessity. The final aim deals with the topic “learning to learn”, as essential step for continuous learning (lifelong learning). In the project introduced in this work we have u...

Virtual Rehabilitation has undergone enormous development in recent years. Most existing Virtual Rehabilitation Systems include a tracking system to provide users with feedback of their movements, allowing them to interact with the virtual environment. The aim of this study is to analyze the influence of this feedback on the sense of presence and i...

Therapies for the treatment of vestibular rehabilitation are focused on postural control, the risk of falls, and the inclusion of patients in activities of daily living (ADL). Recent studies show that virtual reality provides a low-cost system for rehabilitating patients with vestibular disorders. In this paper, we introduce an interdisciplinary pr...

Patients that suffer from Parkinson’s disease (PD) have different symptoms such as tremors, stiffness and slowness in the execution of first movements and absence of balance control. Traditional therapies show improvements in postural control, mobility and gait. Currently, the use of video games with low cost devices such as Nintendo® Wii Balance B...

Balance disorders are a common impairment of some of the pathologies with the highest incidence and prevalence rates. Conventional physical therapy treatment focuses on the rehabilitation of balance skills in order to enhance patients’ self-dependency. In the last years, some studies have reported the clinical benefits of virtual reality systems in...

Weight bearing asymmetry is frequently used as a measure of impairment in balance control, and recovering symmetry in weight bearing is considered an imperative objective of rehabilitation. WBA rehabilitation is especially important for the sit-to-stand movement. Transition between sitting and standing, or vice versa, is one of the most mechanicall...

We present here the Calar Alto Legacy Integral Field Area (CALIFA) survey, which has been designed to provide a first step in this direction.We summarize the survey goals and design, including sample selection and observational strategy.We also showcase the data taken during the first observing runs (June/July 2010) and outline the reduction pipeli...

In this experimental study, we present the results of user motor responses with and without the use of Tracking Feedback to complete correct movements in Virtual Rehabilitation Therapy. To carry out this study, we used a VRT system for standing balance rehabilitation. We applied it under two different conditions to twenty patients (with and without...

This contribution presents the eBaViR System, a virtual rehabilitation system designed to be used in the patient's home. The system uses a conventional PC and the Wii Balance Board to carry out exercises specifically designed for the rehabilitation of postural instability and balance disorders.

Generally, the tracking system is one of the main restrictions in a virtual rehabilitation system because of its cost and / or complex setup. Here we introduce the concept of Virtual Reality Motor Cues (VR Motor Cues). VR Motor Cues include those mechanisms designed with the specific purpose of inducing the user to realize a specific motor activity...