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.