SALSA-iCAMP Team awarded 2 of 3 top prizes at 100-nation scientific symposium on diabetic limb salvage

 The Southern Arizona Limb Salvage Alliance (SALSA) and its Interdisciplinary Consortium for Advanced Motion Performance (iCAMP) were awarded two of the top three awards at the 7^th International Symposium for the Diabetic Foot in The Hague, Netherlands. The first place award focused on some 500 million diabetes hospital admissions and 2 million outpatient diabetic foot admissions between 2006 and 2010 in the USA. “What we found was astonishing”, Armstrong continued “if you have a wound, then your risk for hospital admission from clinic is higher than even for cancer and heart failure, two conditions widely known to be at highest-risk.” The second study, winning third prize, evaluated the potential of virtual-reality-based “exergaming” to reduce fall risk in older people with diabetes. “This study showed enormous promise”, noted Bijan Najafi co-founder and Director of iCAMP. “We see that people with diabetes can now rapidly reduce their risk for falls and therefore morbidity and mortality just by playing a video game.” Armstrong, co-Director of both SALSA and iCAMP summarized both studies in that “While there may seem to be big differences between a 500-million-person database and a video game, we don’t see that difference. It all speaks to the rich variety of works going on to help people heal and to keep them moving through their environment– hopefully with both legs attached.” The two award winners were among hundreds of oral and poster abstracts submitted from more than 100 nations in this symposium, held every four years.

1. First Prize: Skrepnek G, Mills JL, Armstrong DG; “Sole Searching:What happens when nearly 2 million people with diabetic foot ulcers walk into outpatient clinics?” 

2. Third Prize: Grewal G, Schwenk M, Lee Eng J, Menzies R, Talal TK, Armstrong DG, Najafi B,, “Wearable Sensor-Based Exergaming in patients with Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy”