State’s Vet’s To Test New Rehab Technology

DALLAS (AP) — Twenty-five Dallas-area veterans will be the first to try rehabilitation technology designed to transmit sensations of physical touch over the Internet.

The Austin American-Statesman (http://atxne.ws/1Pio9ft ) reports researchers at the University of Dallas are leading the initial six-month trial, which starts next month.

The project seeks to provide enhanced access to physical therapy for disabled veterans who can't commute to the doctor's office. It combines advances in 3-D cameras, high-speed Internet connections, video game engines and "haptic," or sense-of-touch, technology.

Patients would go to the Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center and perform upper-arm exercises with a haptic device, which will transmit the location and force of the patient's motions over the Internet to a device used by a therapist at the UT-Dallas campus, about 20 miles away in Richardson.