SBIR Phase I: An immersive virtual reality platform for remote physical therapy and monitoring

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力旨在研究和开发用于远程物理治疗和患者监测的智能，沉浸式虚拟现实（VR）平台。这一创新增强了生物力学分析，通过在患者家中和诊所中使用现成的消费者VR头戴式显示器促进远程康复，有效地为住院患者的成功指标和使用集中的远程虚拟平台的全身运动指导提供了一种手段。这种技术可能有能力为患者和治疗师提供更实惠、更容易获得和更准确的物理治疗。通过虚拟环境中的远程访问和自动化的身体健康记录，患者的吞吐量可能会增加一倍。此外，该平台将被设计用于支持在“医疗沙漠”边缘社区工作的治疗师，那里的患者没有保险，护理受到医院容量、物理距离、人均医生数量和成本的严重限制。这个软件即服务的沉浸式物理治疗平台预计年收入将达到208万美元。有了远程工具和预测物理治疗分析，更多的人将获得治疗，而不管他们的社会经济和人口背景如何。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目将提供一个沉浸式虚拟现实环境，治疗师可以在3D虚拟诊所中与患者见面，并使用平台的工具来帮助患者评估。这项技术解决了目前广泛使用的远程医疗平台（最常见的是视频会议）的缺点，在这些平台上，治疗师发现很难进行运动能力和平衡协调测试等常见评估。该项目的目标是在虚拟平台上集成一个更新的机器学习算法，使治疗师能够远程评估患者的高精度生物力学指标。目标是实现患者的远程康复，可与患者的面对面康复相媲美。此外，试点研究将与医疗机构一起进行，以评估该技术在通过商业头戴式显示虚拟现实系统提供患者成功指标和锻炼互动方面的作用。这项技术有可能通过显著降低传统的临床和保险成本，为低社会经济背景的人群提供远程访问，减轻患者的不适，并增加远程康复的洞察力，积极改变消费者的物理治疗体验。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact /commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to investigate the research and development of an intelligent, immersive, virtual reality (VR) platform for remote physical therapy and patient monitoring. This innovation enhances biomechanical analysis to facilitate telerehabilitation through off-the-shelf consumer VR head-mounted displays in patient homes and clinics, effectively providing a means for in-patient success metrics and full-body exercise guidance using a centralized, remote virtual platform. Such technology may have the ability to enable greater affordability, accessibility, and accuracy of physical therapy for patients and therapists alike. Patient throughput could potentially be doubled through remote visits in virtual environments and automated physical health documentation. In addition, the platform will be designed to support therapists working in marginalized communities of "medical deserts," where patients are uninsured and care is significantly limited by hospital capacity, physical distance, doctors per population, and cost. This software-as-a-service immersive physical therapy platform may reach a projected annual revenue of $2.08M USD. With remote tools and predictive physical therapy analytics, more individuals will receive access to treatment regardless of their socio-economic and demographic background.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will provide an immersive virtual reality environment where therapists can meet their patient in a 3D virtual clinic and use the platform's tools to aid in patient evaluation. This technology addresses the shortcomings of widely used current telehealth platforms (most often videoconferencing) where therapists find it difficult to perform common evaluations such as movement abilities and balance coordination tests. The goal of this project is to build an updated machine learning algorithm with integration on the virtual platform to enable therapists to remotely evaluate their patients with high accuracy biomechanical metrics. The goal is to achieve remote rehabilitation of patients that is comparable to that of in-person patient rehabilitation. In addition, pilot research will be performed with healthcare organizations to assess this technology in providing patient success metrics and exercise interaction through commercial head-mounted display virtual reality systems. This technology has the potential to positively change a consumer's physical therapy experience by significantly reducing traditional clinical and insurance costs, enabling remote access for populations of low-socioeconomic backgrounds, alleviating discomfort for patients, and increasing remote recovery insights.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.