[Home-based telerehabilitation after stroke]. / Telerehabilitation nach Schlaganfall im häuslichen Umfeld.

The use of modern information and telecommunication technologies enables telerehabilitation of neurological deficits in the domestic environment. The current state of studies on rehabilitative teletherapy for improvement of motor function and mobility deficits due to stroke is reviewed. Two neurolinguistic proof of concept studies investigating the efficacy of online interactive telespeech therapy are reported, which compared virtual screen to screen interactive telerehabilitation of aphasia after stroke and dysarthrophonia in Parkinson's disease to conventional face to face rehabilitation. The results of the studies indicate that the neurological rehabilitation of motor and communicative deficits in the domestic environment of patients by means of teletherapy is just as efficient as conventional rehabilitation. Under home-based telerehabilitation patient transfer becomes unnecessary. Rehabilitative Teletherapy is a posthospital component of a cross-sector supply chain for patients with handicaps or impairments due to stroke and other neurological diseases.

[Fundus spectrometry in age-related maculopathy]. / Fundusspektrometrie bei altersbezogener Makulopathie.

BACKGROUND: Spectroscopic methods permit the non-invasive detection of fundus pigments by the wavelength-dependent absorption of fluorescence as well as by the fluorescence lifetime. From the relative concentrations of haemoglobin and oxyhaemoglobin, the oxygen saturation can be calculated. The onset of age-related maculopathy might be delayed by a high optical density of xanthophyll. The detection of alterations in fundus autofluorescence points to age-related pathomechanisms (accumulation of lipofuscin, formation of connective tissue). The detection of autofluorescence of redox-pairs of coenzymes results in information about metabolic states at the cellular level, and might make possible an early detection of age-related changes when they are still reversible. METHOD: The evaluation of reflectance spectra, detected by imaging ophthalmo-spectrometry, results in the calculation of oxygen saturation or in the optical density of xanthophyll or of melanin. Fluorescence spectra can be measured also by this technique. For the 2-dimensional determination of the distribution of xanthophyll, a very simple method was developed, requiring fundus illumination by one wavelength only. In the detection of time-resolved autofluorescence, the fluorescence lifetime is used for the determination of endogenous fluorophores. RESULTS: As result of comparing studies between ARM patients and healthy subjects, the consumption of retinal oxygen was increased already in the children of ARM patients. An increasing optical density of xanthophyll was determined after lutein supplementation. Differences in fluorescence lifetime were determined between ARM patients and healthy subjects, but their interpretation requires investigations of cell or of organ model cultures. CONCLUSIONS: The described methods permit in vivo basic investigations of ARM and can be considered as impulses for the development of diagnostic devices.