Living Healthier with Media Technology

St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences founds Center for Applied Research in Media Assisted Health Care

St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences (UAS) is founding a center for applied research on media-assisted health care called CARMA (Center for Applied Research in Media Assisted Health Care for Motion and Activity), which will be completed by 2016. Some of the Center's projects will be presented at the European Researchers' Night on 27 September in St. Pölten.

Having the right music in their ears can help athletes to achieve top performances as well as can help to better control the desired running pace during training. Certain rhythms have different individual effects on running speed and health-relevant parameters, and thus indirectly influence training intensity.

During running, a smartphone could measure the heart rate, for example, and provide a musical feedback system to control the training. If the heart rate is too low or too high for the desired training effect, music is played that helps the athlete subconsciously to run faster or slower.

Help for young and old
However, CARMA aims to do more than help ambitious athletes to achieve better results. Media-assisted feedback that takes individual physiological preconditions into account is playing an increasingly prominent role in health prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. CARMA is therefore developing, among other things, assistance systems that foster independence and activity into old age. The University's physiotherapy course plays a leading role in the development of this approach. It studies how prevention, therapy and rehabilitation can be optimised through the use of digital technologies, particularly in young people.

“The project is a perfect fit for EU initiatives on eHealth and demographic change. It provides solutions for the future problems of a changing society,” says Jakob Doppler, co-initiator of CARMA and a researcher at the Institute for CreativeMedia/Technologies (ICM/T) at St. Pölten UAS. The Institute develops and tests technical sensors and analysis and feedback systems for CARMA.

Improved rehabilitation
As part of the project, physiotherapists at St. Pölten UAS are researching the health aspects of media-assisted health care. “We already know how music can be used to regulate walking and running speed. However, we do not yet know how we can exploit this effect in the area of rehabilitation, for example in the gait training of patients with artificial limbs. This is one of the research goals we will pursue at CARMA,” says Brian Horsak, another co-initiator of CARMA and a researcher in the Bachelor programme in physiotherapy at St. Pölten UAS.

European Researchers' Night
On 27 September, St. Pölten UAS will present CARMA and other research projects to a large audience as part of European Researchers' Night. The event will take place simultaneously in over 300 European cities – St. Pölten is its only Austrian venue.

Shows, experiments, workshops, installations and lectures will bring the world of science closer to old and young in the capital city of the State of Lower Austria. Under the motto “Destination Future”, St. Pölten UAS will present projects on the topics of media, health, living, mobility, life, history and technology.

“We are delighted to be able to bring European Researchers' Night to St. Pölten. It will enable us to present our excellent research work in an accessible way and to give people an insight into our most exciting projects,” says Hannes Raffaseder, Rector of St. Pölten UAS, Head of the CARMA project and coordinator of the St. Pölten contribution to European Researchers' Night.

European Researchers' Night
27 September 2013, from 3 p.m., St. Pölten city centre
http://www.destinationfuture.eu/

CARMA (Center for Applied Research in Media Assisted Health Care for Motion and Activity)
The CARMA project is part of the new “Digital Health Care” research focus, in which St. Pölten University of Applied Science links media technology, physiotherapy, dietetics and IT security. The CARMA project is funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).
www.fhstp.ac.at/carma

About the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences
The St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences offers highly practice and performance oriented university courses in Technology, Business and Health & Social Sciences. It now has 16 degree programmes catering for over 1800 students. Apart from its teaching remit St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences is committed to an intensive research programme. Scientific work takes place within the areas of competence media technology, media business, IT-security, simulation, railway as well as health and social sciences. There is an active know-how transfer between courses of study and dedicated institutes, in which hands-on, applied research projects are constantly being developed and implemented.

Media contact:
Mag. Mark Hammer
Media and Science Communication
T +43 / (0)2742 / 313 228 – 269
M +43 / (0)676 / 847 228 – 269
E mark.hammer@fhstp.ac.at
I www.fhstp.ac.at/presse

Scientific Contact:
Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Hannes Raffaseder
Dean
St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences
Head of the course of studies „Digital Media Technologies“
Director ICM/T – Institute of CreativeMedia/Technologies
Matthias Corvinus-Str. 15
3100 St. Pölten, Austria
T +43 / (0)2742 / 313 228 – 616
E hannes.raffaseder@fhstp.ac.at

This release was published on openPR.