Auditory feedback makes walking easier

Prof. Yoram Baram of the Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion-Israel institute of technology has developed an apparatus with auditory feedback that improves walking for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients.

The apparatus can also assist the gait of Parkinson’s disease patients. This is a new version of a virtual reality visual feedback apparatus developed by Prof. Baram some ten years ago, which improves walking by presenting the floor to patients as a checkerboard tile pattern.

Prof. Baram worked with Prof. Ariel Miller of the Technion’s Rappaport Faculty of Medicine and the Multiple Sclerosis and Brain Research Center at the Carmel Medical Center in Haifa, in examining the apparatus’ influence on the gait quality of MS patients. Their work was recently published in the important scientific journal “Journal of the Neurological Sciences.

“We discovered that auditory feedback significantly aids the gait of MS patients and also Parkinson patients, albeit somewhat less effectively for Parkinson patients,” says Prof. Baram.