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）II期项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力涉及患者和治疗师更高的物理治疗可负担性，可及性和准确性。即将商业化的产品将有助于围绕沉浸式远程医疗体验开发创新，探索虚拟世界中物理康复工作的未来，建立体现远程医疗的标准，并在加利福尼亚州的创业公司的VR医疗保健中建立新的科学研究方法，目标是增加获得护理的机会。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，患者吞吐量可能会增加一倍。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，人口医生和成本的严重限制。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的患者受益。这项技术可以降低医院就诊率，使诊所在未来的大流行期间保持开放，降低患者和诊所的成本，并开始更早地检测身体健康需求，以帮助管理恢复的速度。拟议的项目旨在通过持续研究用于物理治疗和健康监测的仪器化和游戏化沉浸式虚拟现实平台，扩展一种新颖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医疗平台（通常是视频会议）的缺点，治疗师发现很难进行常见的评估，如运动能力和平衡协调测试。该解决方案将扩展到具有3D虚拟角色和预测AI工具的远程医疗平台，以实时评估用户生物力学，扩展到全身评估，同时提供规范的评估指标，为远程物理治疗护理创建目标标准。开发方法将继续利用以用户为中心的设计与治疗师小组，以确保原型系统的可访问性和可用性的无关利益相关者。这种研究将结合预测性生物力学分析，以增加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。将使用用户体验进行迭代原型设计，以建立住院患者成功指标和全身虚拟评估。这一创新将为患者和治疗师提供更好的物理治疗的可操作性、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 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.