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Despite the identification of several innovative strategies to prevent cognitive decline, there is currently no single effective approach to minimize the deterioration of cognitive function. Recent studies suggest that the regulation of the strong connection between intestine and brain, with probiotics, is a potential therapeutic strategy to support brain health. 

The Research Module 5 of the flagship project TINCARE of the Spoke 5, aims to develop and validate a platform for the cognitive rehabilitation of elderly fragile people. To ensure accessibility to rehabilitation protocols, digitalization can help: if made available from one's own home, rehabilitation protocols could be easier for users to access and also more readily available for healthcare personnel administering them. In the clinical settings there is increasing importance placed on personalized treatment approaches, based on the individual characteristics and needs of each patient.     For this reason, thew research group BIP, led by Professor Katiuscia Sacco, has started a collaboration with Brainer S.r.l., a company specializing in developing products for digital cognitive rehabilitation. The aim of the collaboration is to propose, as part of their research, some exercises whose mechanics are based on standard cognitive rehabilitation, typically carried out in a pen-and-paper format, enhanced with key elements of gamification, which allow to engage the user also from a motivational point of view.    Moreover, the proposal of ecological tasks is relevant because it can simulate everyday life situations in which frail elderly individuals may encounter greater difficulties.  Furthermore, the research interest of the BIP group is oriented towards aestethic gratification and its effect on intrinsic motivation. Since patients motivation is often a determining factor in the success of rehabilitation protocols, it is essential to consider it in therapeutic procedures. In this sense, comes into play Neuroaesthetics, a discipline that investigate the link between beauty and brain function, including learning, memory, attention and motivation.     The collaboration between the research group BIP and Brainer S.r.l. aims to study the characteristics of digital rehabilitation protocols that can maximize motivation for therapeutic adherence, using musical, visual and gamification elements.       

Spoke 5 - Industry of Health and Silver Economy - recently meet online on January 10, 2024 to take a crucial step in the analysis of the state of work for the upcoming General Assembly of the Ecosystem.  Bringing together the working groups and partner involved, the event provided a valuable opportunity to closely examine the progress made so far, starting from the point-by-point progress of the invidual Work Packages.   During the meeting, the creation of two new Working Group on the themes of internationalization and enterpreneurial development was announced. These groups will actively work to bring together ideas, experiences and good practice, promoting proposals that will be presented during the next General Assembly, scheduled to take place at the University of Pavia on February 13, 2024, providing fertile ground for shared growth and development among the various actors involved.     The online meeting of 10 January has not only highlighted the progress made until now, but also laid the foundations for an even closer collaboration and knowledge sharing, which promises to be fundamental for the future success of the Ecosystem. 

The metaverse is a virtual space where multiple users can interact, including doctors and patients among them.      Today, there is a widespread adoption of digital therapies in home-based treatment, both for continuos monitoring and rehabilitation. In fact, digital therapies can reduce burdens on healthcare facilities by encouraging remote rehabilitation and follow-up visits through the adoption of the ''Augmented Humans'' paradigm, where immersive XR technologies and artificial intelligence assessment tools support the activities of physicians in patient care.    The Department of Human Anatomy at the University of Turin and the 3D Lab belonging to the Department of Management and Production Engineering of the Polytechnic of Turin have developed a preliminary shared Virtual Reality environment that enables interaction between two users, doctor and patient. This means having a tool for telerehabilitation and to support territorial assistance.  This type of assistance can be particularly useful, especially but not exclusively, for vulnerable individuals (e.g. the elderly) whose movements are limited. All of this falls within Research Module 7 of the Flagship Project TINCARE titled: Monitoring mood and cognitive status of patients in the Metaverse.  The goal of this environment is to make it possible to perform excercises that can lead to the assessment of the patient's cognitive state by the doctor within the Metaverse.    The test phase for the validation of the exercises and the optimization of the user experience will start soon.   

From 14 to 17 December last, the 84th Congress of the Italian Society of Cardiology was held in Roma, a prestigious event that brought together top Italian experts to discuss and share the latest scientific advances in cardiology.     Dr. Ines Basso, representing the group of Nurses Researchers of University of Piemonte Orientale, led by Prof. Dal Molin, presented the protocol of the study relating to the Research Module 1 of the Flagship Project TINCARE.   The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a new care model aimed at facilitating the transition from hospital to home for individual hospitalized following an episode of heart failure in reducing hospital readmissions. An experienced nurse will conduct a support intervention to help the patient and their family to improve their self-care and self-manage the disease, also thanks to the use of innovative technological devices to early detect any worsening conditions.  Given the progressive ageing of the population, it is important to design new treatment solutions that can ensure sustainability and effectiveness in responding to the health needs of a society that is changing the demographic structure of its population.   

Il monitoraggio della mobilità in ambulatorio e in condizioni di vita reale, la nuova frontiera della medicina personalizzata, è possibile attraverso un uso consapevole dei sensori inerziali.    I sensori indossabili di tipo inerziali essendo leggeri e miniaturizzati possono consentire una valutazione oggettiva e dettagliata del movimento umano ma allo stesso tempo anche più rapida, pratica e accessibile sia in un contesto ambulatoriale che di vita quotidiana. Tuttavia, è necessario che chi utilizza i sensori inerziali sia pienamente consapevole delle loro potenzialità e dei loro limiti.  Il workshop offerto dalla Società Italiana per l'Analisi del Movimento in Clinica (SIAMOC), comprendendo parte teorica e pratica, rappresenta un'occasione fondamentale, specialmente per i clinici, per prendere consapevolezza con l'uso di questi sensori.  Durante la parte teorica verranno descritti i sensori e forniti i metodi per estrarre i principali parametri di interesse dal punto di vista clinico.  Durante la parte pratica i partecipanti verranno coinvolti in modo interattivo e verranno analizzati i dati provenienti da cammini patologici di varia natura, oltre a fornire le linee guida per acquisizioni appropriate.  Questo workshop ha inoltre la peculiarità di fondere le competenza ingegneristiche a quelle cliniche grazie ad un corpo docente proveniente da entrambi i mondi.    L'evento, che si svolgerà giovedì 22 febbraio 2024, è organizzato secondo la struttura Hub & Spoke.  Sarà possibile partecipare esclusivamente in presenza in una delle otto sedi italiane: Torino (sede HUb), Ancora, Milano, Bologna, Roma, Padova, Catania e Sassari. Al seguente link sono disponibili tutte le informazioni e la locandina ufficiale.  Le iscrizioni al workshop sono aperte e ci si registra tramite Google Form entro il 18 febbraio.  La partecipazione è gratuita per i soci SIAMOC per l'anno solare 2024 (a parte per gli studenti di laurea triennale e magistrale per cui invece è gratuita e non viene richiesto di associarsi). Per maggiori informazioni sulle modalità di associazione consultare il seguente link.  Il numero di posti è limitato e conviene affrettarsi ad iscriversi.  La sede Hub è rappresentata dal Politecnico di Torino a cui fanno riferimento l'ing. Marco Caruso (direttore scientifico dell'evento) e dal prof. Andrea Cereatti, entrambi coinvolti nelle attività del progetto TINCARE all'interno dell'ecosistema NODES.  Il programma dettagliato dell'evento è disponibile nella locandina in allegato. Alla fine della giornata verrà fornito un attestato di partecipazione.    Chiunque necessitasse di maggiori informazioni può contattare l'ing. Marco Caruso al contatto marco.caruso@polito.it 

 Chronic inflammation is a common persistent immune response observed in various degenerative diseases that can promote chronic disease.   In this context, immunomodulation, which involves the ability to instruct immune cells to move from an inflammatory to a regeneate state, thus promoting the resolution of pathology, represents an intriguing solutions.  In regenerative medicine, various strategies can be used to achieve this effect, including exploiting the intrinsic regenerative potential of innovative biological materials: extracellular matrix-associated nanovescicles. These tiny structures, ranging in size from 50 to 400 nanometers, are secreted by cells in various tissues and released into the extracellular matrix and anchored firmly to it. Their presence has been identified in the extracellular matrix of different tissues, such as the skin, heart and intestinal submucosa.   

in an effort to increase awareness and promote fall prevention, researchers from the University of Piemonte Orientale and Politecnico di Torino, as part of the flagship project ''TINCARE'' (research module 3) of NODES, the Aging project and in collaboration with the Municipality of Novara, organized an afternoon of awareness on the topic of fall prevention open to all on December 30, 2023, at the Sant'Andrea in Pernate (NO).     Falls represent a serious public health issue, with devasting on the quality of life of those involved. Preventing falls is crucial to manteining health and independence, especially among the elderly.    During the event, Professor Bellan, Professor Dal Molin, Dr. Visconti and Dr. Vairo from the Department of Traslational Medicine (DIMET) at UPO has described and analyzed the phenomenon of falls starting from the causes that lead the edlerly to fall to the consequences on their health. In order to maximize prevention, decalogues have been distributed containing recommendations and suggestions, such as removing carpets from home, ramaining seated when dressing, paying attention to the electrical wires and to the grandchildren's toys on the floor. Towards the end of the event, Dr. Marco Caruso from the Department of Electronics and Telecommunications (DET) at the Polytechnic of Turin illustrated the research carried out within the NODES project and introduced the wearable system designed to monitor the mobility of study partecipants. The ultimate goal is to monitor, in everyday life, those mobility parameters more related to the risk of falling. The system was worn by a volunteer to better explain its functioning to the audience.    Prevention of falls is a significant challenge, but with community awareness and the assistance of technology, it will be possible to significantly reduce the incidence of this serious health issue.   

In the scientific journal Sensor, researchers from ''TINCARE'' (research module 3) of NODES recently published and article demonstrating how calculating ntrophy on the gait of elderly individuals affected by chronic issues and/or Parkinson's disease serves as a valid indicator of the walking quality. Entrophy can be appliaed to gait measurements for diagnostic and preventive purposes.    From Juve 2022 to June 2023, approximately 70 elderly individuals wor a daily electonic bracelet capable of monitoring their movements.  These data were collected at a frequency of 25 samples per second, resulting in a dataset that, for each eldelry person, involved storing more than 2 million data points per day. These data were then trasnferred to a cloud system, which, utilizing state-of-the-art artificial intelligence algorithms, enabled the calculation of the ''degree of disorder'' in a person's walk.    Throughout the observation year, it was possible to identify individuals who experienced improvements and those who exhibited deteriorations in walking quality.  This value, in the next experiments and researchers, will be exploited to try falls, as a decline in walking quality that can serve as an early symptom of a potential future fall episode.    Massimo Canonico, Francesco Desimoni, Alberto Dal Molin, et al. https://doi.org/10.3390/s23187743  

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a disease characterized by the progressive scarring of lung tissue, which causes a impairment of the lungs' ability to perform their physiological function, that is to transfer oxygen from ambient air to blood and carbon dioxide from blood to air. It predominantly affects males between 50 and 70 years old and, unfortunately, it has a poor prognosis, with an average survival approximately of 3-5 years.    In a recent study1 published by researchers from Research Module 4 of flagship project TINCARE, the capacity of a non-invasive monitoring system (ReDSTM - Remote Dielectric Sensing) was tested for this first time to estimate the degree of pulmonary fibrosis in patient suffering from IPF. This device, by placing a sensor on the patient's shoulder, enables the measurement of lung tissue water content and has previously been validated in patients with heart failure2.    In this study, they demonstrated that water percentage measured with ReDS is higher in a group of 52 patients with IPF compared to healthy subjects, and that higher is the obtained value lower is the lung's functional capacity.  If the results of this study are confirmed in larger populations, it could open the way for the use of this non-invasive tool in monitoring IPF patients.           Citations 1. Respir Med. 2023 Oct; 217:107370. 2. J Clin Med. 2023 Jan 11;12(2):598.   

On September 23rd, the Festival of Health took place with great success in the Sant'Agabio District of Novara. This event, entirely dedicated to prevention and health promotion, represented a valuable opportunity for the Novara community. Organized under the patronage of the Municipality of Novara, the University of Piemonte Orientale. the Service Center for the Territory of Novara and Vco and the Parish of Sant'Agabio, in collaboration with many local voluntary associations and institutions, the Festival aimed to promote a healthy and active lifestyle, as well as a culture of safety in every aspect of everyday life, so that each individual can promote and preserve their own health.    The University of Piemonte Orientale and the NODES project enthusiastically participated in this initiative due to its significance. Furthermore, the festival coincided with the UPO Research Week and the Open Lab event at the Traslational Research Center on autoimmune and allergic diseases (CAAD).   During the event, there was the stand ''The University enters the neighborhoods: the PNRR-NODES Projects for the health of citizens'', presentign the CAAD to the Sant'Agabio neighborhood by presenting its research projects and opening its laboratories to the public. The main objective was to promote Spoke 5 and the flagship projects INNDIANA and TINCARE and the structures hosting the respective Researchers.    This event was an important step forward in the education of the local community on health topics and in the promotion of scientific research, highlighting the contribution of higher education that will continue to work towards improving the health and well-being of the community through innovative research projects and collaborative initiatives.         Image 1: researchers from INNDIANA and TINCARE projects at the stands. In the left photo, Mattia Bellan and Carmela Rinaldi; in the center photo, researchers from INNDIANA (from left, Rita Di Martino, Giuseppe Cappellano, Elena Canciani).     Image 2: photo from the Open Lab day, thanking the Researchers from the CAAD Research Center laboratories of Immunomics, Innovation; UPO biobank; Division Oncology, Genomics Lab, Biological Mass Spectometry and the Rectorate Office (Valentina Toson in the photo and Eleonora Mazzucco), and the people who visited the center.      

On September 29, 2023, the University of Piemonte Orientale opened its doors to the public for an extraordinary evening of scientific discovery and innovation.    The Research Night, held at the Department of Science and Technological Innovation in Viale Teresa Miche 11, embraced the theme ''One Planet, One Health'' and highlighted the NODES- North West Digital and Sustainable.    This event provided participants with a unique opportunity to delve into the depths of science and innovative through a wide range of activities, including conferences, roundtables, interactive workshops and presentations, relating to recycling and reuse, tourism, rare diseases, telemedicine, home care, regenerative medicine but also food and aging.  It was an extraordinary opportunity for students and the general public to learn, share and be inspired. The event demonstrated that scientific research is a fundamental pillar to face global challenges and shape a bettere future, thus confirming the Research Night as an expected and significant event. 

The ESB-ITA 2023 conference in Turin  From September 18 to 19, the Polythecnic University of Turin hosted the XII Annual Meeting of the Italian chapter of the European Society of Biomechanics (ESB-ITA) one of the main national events aimed at bringing together experts in the field of biomechanics to encourage their interaction and to promote research. Among the topics discussed, there was a focus on the development of cutting-edge technologies and innovative approaches for health and well-being.    The award for NEWBREATH research  Young researchers from the group led by Professor Alberto Audenino partecipated in the event, taking the opportunity to disseminate some of the results of their research activities within NEWBREATH, the Research Module of TINCARE aimed at developing a ventilator device for the support of patients in the home environment.  The researchers presented their work on the implementation of methodologies for the experimental verification of the performance of digital models capable of predicting their performance in silico under realistic usage conditions, including virtual patients.  The quality of the work presented by the researchers and the interest in the topics discuessed led to the award ''Medical Device Usability and Training: Integrating Scientific Research and Engineering Design to Drive Innovative Solutions'', sponsored by 3B srl.   

On September 29, 2023, the European Researchers' Night took place in Turin within the elegant Royal Gardens.  The event, which is an important occasion for meeting, exchange, and scientific dissemination between researchers and citizens, has involved several groups from the NODES project for this edition, promoting Spoke 5 ''Health Industry and Silver Economy'' and the projects INNDIANA and TINCARE.        

What is sarcopenia e which are the available treatments? It is a condition characterized by the loss of muscle mass and strenght due to aging: over 65 years, sarcopenia affects more than 40% of individuals. In the elderly, it represent one of the most important risk factors in terms of falls, disability and mortality. It is possible try to prevent sarcopenia or delay its occurrence by exercising and following a proper diet.  Until today, effective pharmacological treatments are not available: the only option involves increasing muscle mass by inhibiting myostatin, a protein that normally limits muscle fiber growth. By inhibiting myostatin, muscle can gain volume. However, the significant increase in muscle mass induced in patientas is not sufficient to ensure prolonged muscle performance beyond momentary effort.    ActR-Fc-nL G3: a new effective therapeutic option for sarcopenia. For years, at the Neuroscience Institute Cavalieri Ottolenghi (NICO), new therapeutic strategies have been studied to counteract sarcopenia at the preclinical level, in collaboration with the Swiss company Pharmafox Therapeutics. Recently, Professor Boido e Doctor Schellino (affiliated with NICO and the Department of Neuroscience, Univeristy of Turin) https://www.nico.ottolenghi.unito.it/Ricerca/Gruppi-di-ricerca/Sviluppo-e-patologia-del-cervello) have published an interesting study in the journal Aging and Disease. Using an older mouse model, called ActR-Fc-nLG3, which in addition to acting on myostatin also aims to improve muscle innervation.  Indeed, the muscles to contract must be properly innervated by motoneurons (specific neurons responsible for sending and trasporting movement signals). ActR-Fc-nLG3 promotes the innervation of muscles made hyperthophic by myostatin inhibition, ensuring prolonged endurance during physical exertion. Compared to conventional treatment, the administration of ActR-Fc-nLG3 is capable of improving the stability of neuromuscular joints (the points of contact between motoneurons and muscle fibers) and their innervation, preventing muscle atrophy: this allowed an improvement in motor performance, and in particular an increase in strenght and resistance to prolonged physical exertion in mice treated with ActR-Fc-nGL3.  The application of this approach could also be extended to other diseases similarly characterized by muscle atrophy and innervation deficits, such neuromuscular diseases (including Amyotrophic lateral Sclerosis and Spinal Muscular Atrophy), thereby expanding its potential use across a broad range of conditions.          Copyright: © 2023 Schellino R. et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.