Open Net and Closed Lives
Sometimes we read in stories or in movies we come across that nature alerts us and give us the way forward to what an individual should pursue their career.
Imagine a situation for a person who supported millions of people both in healthcare solutions and insurance domains to recover from any critical illness, and his team of doctors saying there is no support available in the multi-speciality hospital he is associated with.
The same miracle/disaster occurred in the career and life of the author of this article, who is the parent of autism child who transformed himself from a technology architect to a healthcare management consultant who received gold recognitions in healthcare solutions and insights and receiver of international changemaker gold award for his services to society in neurodiversity area. Autism Spectrum Disorder is a lifetime neurological disorder where there is no treatment or surgery, even no root cause known, and research is still ongoing.
Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that affects how people communicate and interact with the world.
Data and Statistics on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
(Source: https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html)
Prevalence:
- About 1 in 44 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), according to estimates from CDC’s ADDM Network.
- ASD is reported to occur in all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups.
- ASD is more than four times more common among boys than among girls.
- About 1 in 6 (17 per cent) children aged 3–17 years were diagnosed with a developmental disability, as reported by parents, during a study period of 2009- 2017. These included autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, blindness, and cerebral palsy, among others.
A high-performance wireless network can help Wellness-on-Wheels providers in numerous ways. Many benefits of a wireless focus on improving early intervention, medical advice, counselling services and therapy services by increasing communication between students, parents, and therapists in facilitating remote locations for people who have difficulty travelling to physical rehabilitation and wellness centres.
Enterprise cloud networking, wireless network and edge computing use cases in connected vehicles, healthcare and rehabilitation services enable needy people, including people with mobility challenges and profound severity, to get access to a portfolio of services from the cloud with neurodiversity support services.
Building the Public Health Infrastructure for Neurodiversity and ASD is very important; despite much effect being put into raising awareness for people with autism, autistic people still struggle against misleading stereotypes. These people have closed lives with challenges to travel in reaching wellness centres and look for support in improving life skills to transform them from dependent to independent living.
Virtual Rehabilitation Unit with Digital Health Framework
Virtual rehabilitation technology connected to intelligent cloud-hosted programs with enhanced therapeutic methods used for patients with conditions ranging from neurodiversity, divyangans, musculoskeletal problems, stroke-induced paralysis, to cognitive deficits. This approach is called ‘VR-augmented rehabilitation.’ Alternately, VR can replace conventional interventions altogether, in which case the rehabilitation is ‘VR-based.’ If the intervention is done at a distance, then it is called ‘Tele Rehabilitation.’ Simulation exercises for post-stroke patients have been developed using a ‘teacher object’ approach or a video game approach.
Simulations for Musculoskeletal patients use virtual replicas of rehabilitation devices (such as rubber balls, power putty, and peg boards). Phobia-inducing virtual environments are prescribed for patients with cognitive deficits. The Virtual Rehabilitation Unit is the most modern system utilising immersive technology with applications running in the cloud with remote connectivity.
Physiotherapy and Occupational therapy services embedded with a simulation-based exercise-oriented approach have assumed the role of non-separable entity for disability treatment. Helping special children and adults to defeat and overcome their disability and to become independent individuals in society – this approach is particularly rewarding in rehabilitation programs for such disorders as Autism, diseases such as Cerebral Palsy, Peripheral Nerve Palsy etc. Physiotherapy is an integral part of Modern Medicine. Occupational therapy for sensory integration. It is a drugless therapy. It is a dynamic Science.
– Mallikarjuna Rao Dubisetty, Founder and CIO, SMILES Foundation India
