RAPD: Development of Domestic Virtual Robotic Environment

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).0930927MatsuokaAbout 700,000 Americans suffer from new or recurrent strokes each year, with some 500,000 being fortunate enough to survive [1]. Over half of all strokes occur in areas of the brain that control movement, leaving many victims with impaired motor functions [2] that are most often localized in one side of the body and in one specific area, such as the arm or hand. With careful physical rehabilitation, damaged motor functions can recover partial or full mobility as the nervous system rewires its neural circuits to represent lost functions at new neural locations. The level of recovery depends on the amount and quality of post-stroke rehabilitative care [1,3]. Once their condition stabilizes, inpatients typically receive daily occupational and physical therapy; outpatients visit rehabilitation clinics or receive therapist home visits several times a week for the first few months of recovery [4]. Research shows that physical recovery continues beyond six months post-stroke [3]. Unfortunately, the level of longer term care can be prematurely curtailed by patients' insurance plans, families' ability to transport patients to rehabilitative care, and patients' own motivation levels. Another significant factor limiting optimal recovery is "learned non-use" [5,6,7], viz., when stroke survivors learn to manage daily activities without using the formerly paralyzed limb even if they can. Our work can play a critical role not only in helping stroke survivors regain physical mobility, but in helping them overcome the social, emotional and motivational barriers to doing so. Our overarching goal is to develop a domestic rehabilitative environment that is: (1) safe to use residentially, (2) engaging even for the unmotivated, (3) provides useful interface for off-site therapists and physicians, and (4) able to overcome or avoid learned non-use issues. Toward the end of the proposed period, this environment will be placed in several homes where usability and safety can be qualitatively assessed (without running the therapeutic program). This is a three-year project; after its successful completion, we intend to replicate and distribute the system to more patients' homes for complete therapeutic evaluation. The intellectual merits of the proposed project are in: (1) the multi-disciplinary engineering contribution needed to design a novel domestic virtual robotic environment that is safe and engaging, and (2) addressing scientific questions related to useful physiological/behavioral data for off-site therapists and perceptual interactions that augment people?s movements without their conscious awareness. With these problems solved, we will be able to rehabilitate patients with motor impairments in their own homes and extend their range of motion beyond what they had previously thought possible. The broader impacts of the proposed work are in: (1) reducing the burden on stroke survivors' families and lowering the cost of care to families and insurers, (2) extending the environment for use in domestic diagnosis, prevention, and exercise paradigms for neurological disorders, elder care, and additional disabled populations, and (3) recruiting more girls in the middle school into science and engineering by introducing the concept of ?helping people' through science and engineering. The PI is a woman with a strong track record in providing K-12 outreach.