I-Corps: Remote monitoring and assessment tool for spinal care patients

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种测量肌肉骨骼功能和监测患者全天运动的系统。腰痛是全球致残的主要原因，高达80%的美国人一生中都会经历腰痛。这些患者的诊断和治疗途径复杂、昂贵（非手术和手术干预的费用在10,815美元到87,000美元之间），而且往往模棱两可。对于每年接受融合手术的162万美国人来说，他们的治疗并发症率高达50%，翻修率高达36%。尽管如此，这些手术的比率仍在增长。1998年至2008年间，颈椎、胸椎和腰椎融合率分别上升了90%、61%和141%。最近的研究发现，高达17%的脊柱融合术是在不应该推荐手术的患者身上进行的。所提出的技术可能允许对肌肉骨骼疾病进行纵向跟踪和功能定量评估，并提供个性化护理和减少并发症。此外，所提出的技术可应用于疼痛管理、矫形肢体市场和运动训练。I-Corps项目的基础是开发一种远程监测和评估工具，为脊柱护理患者提供动态指标和指导个性化治疗。该技术使用了一个由三部分组成的系统，包括一个可穿戴阵列、一个运动分析和校准算法，该算法可以对脊柱进行3D建模，以及一份将记录数据转换为临床指标的临床报告。目的是在48小时内分析动态运动、肌肉补偿和疼痛，为脊柱外科医生和疼痛管理从业人员提供临床外患者的客观测量。这项技术建立在最近的研究基础上，这些研究表明脊柱的平均弯曲度可能与站立的放射图像有很大的不同，如果不加以考虑，这可能会导致手术计划中的重大错误。建议的传感阵列将在标准咨询结束时在受控环境中放置在患者身上。开发的传感器校准方法将用于提高精度和减少放置误差，提供预测姿态估计系统。这一领域的进步可能使以前无法在自然环境中对患者进行功能评估，并导致远程监测的实质性改进。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 I-Corps project is the development of a system to measure musculoskeletal function and monitor patient movements throughout the day. Lower back pain is the leading cause of global disability and up to 80% of Americans will experience lower back pain in their life. The diagnosis and treatment pathways for these patients are complex, expensive (ranging between $10,815 to $87,000 for non-surgical and surgical interventions), and often ambiguous. For the 1.62 million Americans who undergo fusion procedures each year, their treatment is plagued with complication rates as high as 50% and revision rates upwards of 36%. Despite this, rates of these procedures are growing. Between 1998 and 2008, cervical, thoracic, and lumbar fusions rose by 90%, 61%, and 141%. Recent studies have found that up to 17% of spine fusions performed were on patients who should not have been recommended surgeries. The proposed technology may allow for longitudinal tracking and functional quantitative assessment of musculoskeletal disorders and provide personalized care and decreased complications. In addition, the proposed technology may be applied to pain management, the orthopedic extremity market, and sports training.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a remote monitoring and assessment tool to provide dynamic metrics and guide personalized treatment for spine care patients. The proposed technology uses a three-part system that consists of a wearable array, a motion analysis and calibration algorithm that models the spine in 3D, and a clinical report that translates recorded data into clinical metrics. The goal is to analyze dynamic movement, muscular compensation, and pain over a 48-hour window, providing spine surgeons and pain management practitioners with objective measurements of their patients outside of the clinic. The technology builds on recent studies that show that the average spinal curvature may drastically differ from standing radiographic images, which can lead to significant errors in surgical planning when not considered. The proposed sensing array will be placed on the patient in a controlled environment at the end of a standard consultation. Developed sensor calibration methods will be used to increase accuracy and reduces placement error, providing a predictive pose estimation system. Advancements in this field may enable previously uncaptured functional assessments of patients in a natural environment and lead to substantial improvements in remote monitoring.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.