CAREER: Aquatic Therapy Assist-Tool Using a Real-Time Underwater Physiological and Musculokinetic Monitoring in Personalized Stroke Rehabilitation

水中疗法是一种在水中进行的物理疗法，被广泛用于帮助中风患者康复。水的好处是让病人更容易、更少痛苦地进行康复训练。在水上治疗和康复中，治疗师必须了解治疗如何影响每个患者的表现，以创建对他们最有效的个性化方案。然而，目前的研究对这方面的关注还不够，主要是比较患者治疗前后的进展情况。治疗师在实践中依靠他们的观察、直觉、经验和专业知识，因为他们没有技术可以准确地测量和分析病人在水中运动时的身体和肌肉运动。这意味着治疗师无法实时调整他们的指导，以确保他们的病人正确地做练习，并从中获得最大的好处。持续监测和分析患者在水中治疗期间的表现可以为治疗如何影响他们的身体能力提供有价值的见解。这可以根据每个人的需要制定优化的训练计划，从而实现更高效和有效的康复。这个项目旨在了解人体在水下是如何工作的，以及它对水中疗法中不同的运动和练习是如何反应的。这些知识将用于开发更加个性化和有效的水生康复计划，特别是对于患有神经障碍和疾病的人。这项研究有可能导致治疗这些疾病的新的和改进的方法。该项目将为治疗师设计一个辅助工具，使用专为水环境设计的可穿戴系统和利用疏水生物信号传感器，研究水生治疗期间的生理和运动改善，并允许他们基于变革性方法为中风康复中的个人身体评估和个性化水生治疗创建新的评估指标。本项目将(1)设计并评估用于水下生理和肌肉动力学监测的符合人体工程学的可穿戴系统，(2)研究水疗法在中风康复中的评估指标，(3)根据结果开发系统的个性化水疗法辅助工具。该项目将评估拟议的可穿戴系统和评估指标，包括可穿戴性、功能、可用性和临床水生治疗师的有效性。在三个研究目标的基础上，将个性化医疗与康复的跨学科研究框架整合到扩大专科、本科生和研究生对医疗工程的参与，培养跨学科研究团队和包容性培训，并将研究与多学科课程开发相结合的教育目标中。最终，该项目将产生水生疗法的范式转变。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。

Aquatic therapy is a type of physical therapy that takes place in water and is widely used to help stroke patients recover. Water has benefits that make it easier and less painful for patients to perform rehabilitation exercises. In aquatic therapy and rehabilitation, it is essential for therapists to understand how the therapy affects each patient's performance to create a personalized program that will be most effective for them. However, current research has not focused enough on this aspect, and instead mainly compares patients' progress before and after therapy. Therapists rely on their observations, intuitions, experience, and expertise in their practice since there is no technology available for them to accurately measure and analyze their patients' physical and muscle movements when they exercise in water. This means that therapists are not able to adjust their instructions in real-time to ensure that their patients are doing the exercises correctly and getting the most benefit from them. Continuous monitoring and analysis of the patients' performance during aquatic therapy can provide valuable insights into how the therapy is affecting their physical abilities. This can lead to the development of an optimized training program that is tailored to each individual's needs, resulting in more efficient and effective rehabilitation. This project aims to understand how the human body works underwater and how it responds to different movements and exercises in aquatic therapy. This knowledge will be used to develop more personalized and effective aquatic rehabilitation programs, particularly for people with neurological disorders and diseases. This research has the potential to lead to new and improved ways of treating these conditions.This project will design an assist-tool for therapists to investigate physiological and motor improvements during aquatic therapy using a wearable system designed for the water environment and utilizing hydrophobic bio-signal sensors, and to allow them to create new evaluation metrics for individual physical assessment and personalized aquatic therapy in stroke rehabilitation based on transformative approach. This project will (1) design and evaluate an ergonomic wearable system for underwater physiological and musculokinetic monitoring, (2) investigate evaluation metrics for aquatic therapy in stroke rehabilitation, and (3) develop a systematic personalized aquatic therapy assist-tool based on the outcomes. The project will evaluate the proposed wearable system and evaluation metrics in terms of wearability, functionality, usability, and effectiveness with clinical aquatic therapists. Along with three research aims, interdisciplinary research framework for personalized healthcare and rehabilitation will be integrated into the educational goal of broadening the participation of pre-college, undergraduate, and graduate students in healthcare engineering, fostering an interdisciplinary research group and inclusive training, and integrating the research into multidisciplinary course development. Eventually, this project will yield a paradigm shift in aquatic therapy.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.