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

这一小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力涉及到患者和治疗师更大的负担能力、可获得性和物理治疗的准确性。该产品将商业化，将有助于围绕沉浸式电子健康体验开发创新，探索虚拟现实中物理康复工作的未来，建立虚拟远程医疗的标准，并为加州一家初创公司的医疗保健VR内的创新科研方法奠定基础，目标是增加医疗保健的可及性。建立远程沉浸式虚拟平台将为住院患者的成功指标和全身虚拟指导提供手段。通过虚拟环境中的远程访问和自动化的身体健康记录，患者吞吐量可能会翻一番。该平台的设计将考虑到来自“医疗沙漠”的患者的可访问性，在那里，患者护理受到医院容量、物理距离、人均医生数和成本的严重限制。远程物理康复工具和预测性物理治疗分析将使没有足够保险覆盖的患者受益。这项技术可以减少医院就诊次数，使诊所在未来大流行期间继续开放，降低患者和诊所的成本，并更早开始检测身体健康需求，以帮助管理恢复速度。拟议的项目旨在通过持续研究用于物理治疗和医疗监测的仪表化和游戏化沉浸式虚拟现实平台，扩展一种新的物理康复远程医疗解决方案。这项技术解决了广泛使用的远程保健平台(通常是视频会议)的缺点，在这些平台上，治疗师发现很难进行常见的评估，例如运动能力和平衡协调测试。该解决方案将在一个具体的远程健康平台上进行扩展，该平台具有3D虚拟化身和预测性AI工具，以实时评估用户的生物力学，扩展到全身评估，同时提供标准化的评估指标，为远程物理治疗护理创建目标标准。开发方法将继续使用以用户为中心的设计和治疗师小组，以确保相关利益攸关方可访问和使用原型系统。这类研究将包括预测性生物力学分析，以提高物理治疗措施和锻炼计划的可靠性和可重复性，以便在诊所或患者家中进行远程监测。将进行具有用户体验的迭代原型，以建立住院患者成功衡量标准和全身虚拟评估。这一创新将使患者和治疗师能够更好地承担物理治疗的费用、可用性和有效性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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 IIproject concerns greater affordability, accessibility, and accuracy of physical therapy for patients andtherapists. The product to be commercialized will contribute to developing innovation around immersivetelehealth experiences, exploring the future of work for physical rehabilitation in the metaverse,establishing standards in embodied telehealth, and grounding novel scientific research methods within VRfor healthcare from a California-based startup with the goal of increasing access to care. Establishing aremote immersive virtual platform will provide a means for in-patient success metrics and full-body virtualguidance. Patient throughput potentially could be doubled through remote visits in virtual environmentsand automated physical health documentation. The platform will be designed with accessibility in mindwith patients from "medical deserts," where patient care is significantly limited by hospital capacity,physical distance, doctors per population, and cost. Remote physical rehabilitation tools and predictivephysical therapy analytics will benefit patients without adequate insurance coverage. This technologycould lower hospital visits, enable clinics to remain open during future pandemic periods, decrease costsfor patients and clinics alike, and begin detecting physical health needs earlier to help manage the paceof recovery.The proposed project aims to expand a novel physical rehabilitation telehealth solution through thecontinued research of an instrumented and gamified immersive virtual reality platform for physical therapyand healthcare monitoring. This technology addresses the shortcomings of widely used telehealth platforms (often videoconferencing) where therapists find it difficult to perform common evaluationssuch as movement abilities and balance coordination tests. The solution will expand upon an embodiedtelehealth platform with 3D virtual avatars and predictive AI tools to assess user biomechanics in real-timeextending to full-body assessment while providing normative assessment metrics, creating a goalstandard for remote physical therapy care. The development method will continue to utilize user-centereddesign with a panel of therapists to ensure accessibility and usability of the prototype systems by theirrelevant stakeholders. Such research will incorporate predictive biomechanical analysis to increase thereliability and repeatability of physical therapy measures and exercise programs for remote monitoringat the clinic or the patient’s home. Iterative prototyping with user experience will be conducted toestablish in-patient success metrics and full-body virtual assessment. This innovation will enable greateraffordability, usability, and effectiveness of physical therapy for patients and therapists.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.