Heike Vallery professor of innovative rehabilitation technology at EMC

News - 12 December 2019 - Webredactie 3ME

Heike Vallery, professor of human motor augmentation, has been named honorary professor of innovative rehabilitation technology at the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Erasmus MC. This appointment underscores the importance of innovative rehabilitation technology in health care and is an important milestone in connecting technology and medicine.

How can you use technological innovations to support people with movement restrictions? That is an important question and a key focal point in rehabilitation medicine. To answer this question, medicine and technology need to develop a close partnership. Heike Vallery works at the interface of these two fields and conducts research on bipedal locomotion and robotic assistance for patients with gait disorders. As professor of innovative rehabilitation technology, in addition to carrying out her research Vallery will take forward the knowledge infrastructure in the area of innovative rehabilitation in scientific research, education and patient care. This partnership will be further reinforced by the partnership with the Rijndam rehabilitation centre, which will serve as a clinical trial centre, and the colleges in Rotterdam and The Hague in a Living Labs infrastructure.

Heike Vallery: “I am extremely happy with this appointment. It provides a unique opportunity to accelerate the innovation process in rehabilitation treatment. I want to contribute as well to innovation in education by trying to set up a joint course for 3mE and medical students in the area of case-based rehabilitation technology”.

Erasmus MC

The Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at Erasmus contributes substantially to the clinical technology educational programme, fills an administrative role in the Innovative Medical Devices Initiative (IMDI): Neurocontrol, has a partnership with the Shirley Ryan Ability lab in Chicago in research and in organising annual summer courses for researchers, and contributed to the Erasmus MC-TU Delft convergence document. It has been decided that the appointment of new PhD students and staff members will focus on young talented scientists who have an affinity with rehabilitation technology.

Read more about Heike Vallery
Also read: Robotic support improves rehabilitation

Science communication

Fien Bosman