Sheba Hospital will expose a Israeli kit for sensory training, that improves the brain activity for patients who suffer from a decrease in feeling in the palms

The Department for Multiple Sclerosis in Sheba Hopsital will present for the first time a novel kit for sensory training, that improves patients’ brain activity. The kit will be presented in the BioMed Israel Week 2010, which will be held on July 14th-16th in Tel Aviv.
The kit is based on cylinders that come in varied textures, and is designed for populations that suffer from a decline in feeling at the palms, including the healthy aging population that suffers from an age-related decrease in sensory feeling. The kit should also help patients who suffer from neuropathic diseases, which cause an advanced decrease of sensory feeling due to the peripheral neuronal injury. Other target populations include patients who suffer from diseases of small blood vessels, patients with cancer who receive chemotherapy that leads to similar injury, and patients after brain infraction, or multiple sclerosis patients, in which the sensory injury is due to a brain or spinal cord injury.
The kit includes 24 cylinders, a string for the parts, a DVD set with instructions and a bag to hold them all. The use of the kit is simple: the exercise is conducted with closed-shut eyes, while feeling and identifying the texture of each cylinder for 15 minutes a day.
The new kit, in which the difficulty level (as determined by the texture) can be as befitting the user, was developed by the Department for Multiple Sclerosis in Sheba Hospital. Among the participants in the project were Prof. Anat Achiron, neurologist and head of the Multiple Sclerosis Center, Simona Gelb, occupational therapist and Michal Grinberg Abrahami, industrial designer and product developer. According to the developer team, the novelty of the invention lies in the fact that the training method is based on the learning capability and plasticity of the brain. “Recent researches have proven that training can lead to an increase in the number of synaptic connections, which correlates with an improvement in function. In the research that we have conducted on multiple sclerosis patients with sensory injury… we have found that after practicing there was an improvement of 12.5% in a PDT2 sensory test and an improvement of 27% in an MFT sensory test – and that’s after home training for three weeks.”
According to the developers, the new, user-friendly therapeutic tool has special significance for the younger of age (children and teenagers) with sensory injuries, since it enables them to practice daily in an independent manner. The kit, the price of which to the consumer will be 350 NIS, will become available during June 2010.

ILSI-BioMed Israel 2010
‘ILSI-BioMed Israel 2010′ is the annual main event of the Israeli life sciences industry. The week includes a professional international conference with the participation of the best experts (CEOs and senior managers from companies in the fields of bio-pharma and medical devices, researchers and scientists, entrepreneurs, publicists, venture capital funds managers and private investors) from Israel and abroad, and a show that presents the newest innovations. ILSI-BioMed Israel 2010, which has won international acclaim and is considered the second largest conference in the world after the United States, will be held between the 14th and 16th of June at the David Intercontinental hotel in Tel Aviv.