Jürgen Konczak, Ph.D., professor in the School of Kinesiology, traveled to Essen, Germany, last month to attend a one-day project meeting for a Human Sensorimotor Control Lab (HSC) study on patients with spinocerebellar ataxia. The study investigates whether patients with spinocerebellar ataxia may benefit from sensorimotor training early in their disease. The project is conducted jointly with the University Medical Center in Essen and is funded by the German Science Foundation.

Konczak also traveled to Bad Aibling, Bavaria, to visit a large neurorehabilitation clinic that treats over 500 cases of cortical stroke per year. Clinical researchers there are interested in HSC’s wristbot technology for stroke rehabilitation and discussed ways of using this experimental technology in their clinic. The wristbot is robotic device that can move a person’s wrist in a controlled way providing assistance to those who cannot move the hand/wrist due to injury.