Editor's comment

Welcome to the latest edition of NR Times - your digital, bi-monthly magazine covering neuro-rehab from every angle.

Simplicity is apparently in growing demand among tech consumers right now. Sales of ‘dumb phones’ – the distraction-free antidote to their smarter cousins – are on the rise; while tablet device makers are locked in a battle to create the notepad screen that most feels like old fashioned paper. Digital detox apps that temporarily reduce laptops to glorified offline typewriters are also increasingly popular.

Many of us evidently want technology to do just what we need it to – and not what those distractors seeking to monetise our time want us to do with it.

This striving for simplicity, while unlocking the benefits of the latest technology, is a tough nut to crack. In the neuro-rehab world, it is a challenge being taken on by a collective of rehab professionals and technologists we interview in this issue.

Tech start-up Memjo and clinicians and researchers at St Andrew’s Healthcare are working together to develop a tablet device to help people with dementia. The aim is to harness the most intuitive technology – for example AI that can help to tune into the user’s needs – without creating stigma, fear and other barriers that can come with unfamiliar, seemingly complicated technology.

As we report, the early signs are good that the lives of people with dementia can be enhanced by triggering memories via a user-friendly digital device. Read the full feature here.

Meanwhile, in this edition – like the 32 that precede it – we yet again revisit a recurring theme: the unlocking of previously untapped potential to help people with neurological conditions.

As neuro-rehab approaches develop, professionals in the field are continually finding new ways of achieving marginal gains in patient outcomes; by leaning into some overlooked, underrated, long-forgotten or never-been-tried factor.

Such influences, as covered in this edition, include the natural world, the art of podcasting, music, nutrition-based research, combined MDT processes and playful activities.  

Other highlights include our cover story, which reports on efforts to help children understand and deal with the changes to family life that can occur if a parent is brain injured. You’ll also find in-depth interviews with Gunnar Olsson, CEO of Swedish biotech company, IRLAB, which is exploring “blockbuster” drug candidates for Parkinson’s; and Harvey Sihota, chief vision officer at Spinal Research, which supports the development of function-restoring spinal injury treatments.  

And, if you have time to spare, perhaps on your next commute, our new vault of online debates is well worth a visit. Families and brain injury, the outlook for community rehab and the future of case management are among those topics discussed by experts.

We hope you enjoy our latest edition – and please send any story suggestions to editor@aspectpublishing.co.uk.

Andrew Mernin, editorial director, NR Times