January KITE Trainee Innovations Showcase

The Trainee Innovations Showcase is an opportunity for trainees to share their work with members of the public, showcase that research in simple terms, and recruit participants for UHN Research studies.

This month's edition of the series will highlight the work of the following trainees:

Bryan Piper

Title: Textile Fluid Measurement

Creating wearable sensors for monitoring body water for patients with heart failure. People living with heart failure often have increased water in the chest and legs -- and this also makes symptoms worse. By monitoring body water, we can reduce emergency situations by catching water increase early and alert caregivers.

Rachael Carson

Title: Enhancing Cardiac Rehabilitation for Women: The Cardiac College for Women Curriculum

Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs generally do not provide women with needed secondary prevention information specific to them. To bridge this gap, the Cardiac College for Women curriculum was developed to offer women-focused educational materials. This innovation showcase will display short educational videos used in women-focused CR. Key topics include cardiovascular risk factors, exercise, nutrition, psychosocial health, medications, and maintenance post-program. Attendees of the showcase will be invited to choose videos and topics of interest to them, as well as explore the Cardiac College for Women website.

 Katharina Pohlmann

Title: Can vibrations reduce visually induced motion sickness in Virtual Reality?

People often experience motion sickness like symptoms when engaging with virtual environments. These adverse symptoms are believed to occur due to a mismatch between physically and visually perceived self-motion also referred to as a sensory conflict. When engaged in Virtual Reality (VR) the user can travel through large virtual environments perceiving visual self-motion while they are physically completely stationary, for example being seated on their couch. We propose that introducing an additional sensory cue that matched the visually perceived self-motion could reduce motion sickness by reducing the sensory conflict and/or by increasing the user’s sensation of presence.