IndieTrainer: Enabling Children with Cerebral Palsy to Receive Gamified Power Mobility Training in their Own Manual Wheelchairs

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In the United States, around 10,000 children are born each year with cerebral palsy (CP), and 30% will go on to have limited or no walking ability. For children with severe disabilities, independent mobility is often impossible without the aid of a powered wheelchair. Unfortunately, the skills needed to operate a powered wheelchair can be difficult to master and the current approach to training is both time and labor intensive. Consequently, many children are excluded from powered wheelchair training and are thus prevented from achieving independent mobility. To address this need, we developed the KWIC Trainer that allowed therapists to provide powered wheelchair training using a child’s own manual wheelchair and included a videogame-based training mode. Despite its initial success, clinicians noted two key limitations: 1) it only included a single access method, and 2) it lacked certain usability features (e.g. quick setup time, maneuverability, training parameter selection, etc.) that would be required for successful integration into clinical practice. Therapists also noted that the videogaming mode needed to be expanded to accommodate children at the earlier stages of learning power mobility. Thus, we propose in this Direct-to-Phase II SBIR to complete development of an improved, commercially viable powered wheelchair trainer that builds on our previous success with the KWIC Trainer. To accomplish this goal, we have partnered with the Center for Discovery, who has developed an innovative power mobility device, called indieGoTM, that temporarily converts a manual wheelchair into a powered wheelchair with almost no setup time. We will expand and refine the indieGoTM system to incorporate an improved version of the videogame-based training system developed for the KWIC Trainer, thus creating an effective new wheelchair training system that we call the IndieTrainer. Our specific aims for this Phase II project are to: Aim 1) Modify the indieGo electronics to enable communication with the videogame program and allow additional access methods to be used (e.g. specially designed joystick handles, switches, or head arrays); Aim 2) Develop an improved videogame-based progressive wheelchair training program with adjustable safety and training settings; Aim 3) Complete an open-label, single-arm clinical trial of the IndieTrainer in individuals with CP (n = 25). Our hypothesis is that the IndieTrainer system will facilitate more accessible and effective power mobility training, allowing more children to improve their functional mobility and increase their independence. At the end of this project, we will have completed initial development and efficacy testing of a novel powered wheelchair training system. If successful, the IndieTrainer will be the first clinical system to provide safe, gamified, and highly accessible powered wheelchair skills training in a child’s own manual wheelchair, finally allowing children with more severe disabilities to receive effective mobility training and increase their independence.