November 2017

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Editor Message

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High-tech care for kids

The brightly colored skateboard-like motorized device for infants looks like it could be the coolest new learning enhancement toy destined to sell out for the winter holidays, but it’s an experimental medical device that can sense the motions of infants with cerebral palsy and respond with a powered assist to help them learn to crawl. It’s one of the new pediatric medical technologies you can read about in this issue; others include powered exoskeletons and sophisticated virtual reality platforms that can help children with gait impairments improve their walking ability (see “Cutting edge: Treatment for kids goes high tech,” page 8).

High-tech devices (wearable sensors) are also highlighted in our feature on tailoring balance interventions to kids’ age-related needs (see “Firm foundation: Better balance for young patients,” page 15) and in two November LER articles (“Assessing runners’ gait using wearable sensors,” page 43; and “Video overlay feedback helps improve biomechanics of sport-specific landing,” page 11).

Yet, for a variety of reasons, pediatric medical technology often lags five to 10 years behind new technology for adults. The market is smaller and research is more complicated, but it’s also an engineering problem, with snags arising from the physics of miniaturization and other issues writ small.

And, even with all of the potential and promise of technology for doing things other treatments can’t—as well as doing it faster, more precisely, with less weight or bulk, and all the other allures of next-gen science—lower-tech methods and care still have an important role in pediatric care.

For one, they are typically well-tested and understood. Wearable sensors, for example, suffer from technical glitches and a lack of evidence-based validation. Low-tech options also may be more affordable and accessible.

As LER’s editor in chief Jordana Bieze Foster notes in her November editorial (see “Low tech, high value,” page 9), “Hi-tech may be the way of the future, but low-tech approaches still have a lot to offer.” Emily Delzell, Senior Editor

By Emily Delzell, Senior Editor

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