STTR Phase I: Developing a Mixed Reality Rehabilitation System

这个小型企业技术转移(STTR)第一阶段研究项目调查了创建基于混合现实(MR)触觉的虚拟现实系统的可行性，该系统将帮助上肢残疾人士进行身体康复。这个MR康复系统将包括硬件和软件，旨在诱导神经可塑性皮质变化，增加活动能力，并提高残疾患者与上肢相关的日常生活能力。这个项目的目标是解决创建这样一个系统、用人的因素分析对其进行评估以及开发商业原型的技术问题。此外，该项目将增加对残疾患者传统康复治疗的最新替代方案和/或辅助方案的了解。该项目将导致开发新的软件和硬件，这些软件和硬件可用于虚拟/增强/混合现实系统的进一步发现和技术开发。仅在美国就有1200多万个有肢体残疾成员的家庭，该项目将为未来康复系统的发展铺平道路，以帮助这一广泛且服务不足的人群，增加公共卫生知识库，在未来帮助其他肢体残疾人，并为商业康复市场提供一种新的上肢身体康复工具，比目前的身体康复方法更令人愉快和更有效。通过增加残疾患者的上肢活动能力，这一MR系统还将增加他们的日常生活能力和使用互联网参与在线社区的能力。

This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I research project investigates the feasibility of creating a mixed reality (MR) haptics-based virtual reality system that will aid the physical rehabilitation of individuals with upper extremity disabilities. This MR rehabilitation system will include both hardware and software designed to induce neuroplastic cortical changes, increase mobility, and raise upper extremity related activities of daily living in disabled patients. The goal of this project is to address the technical issues of creating such a system, evaluating it with a human factors analysis, and developing a commercial prototype. Additionally, this project will increase the understanding of state-of-the-art alternatives and/or adjuncts to traditional rehabilitation therapy for disabled patients.This project will lead to the development of new software and hardware that can be used for further discoveries and technological developments in virtual/augmented/mixed reality systems. Of the over twelve million families in the U.S. alone that have members with a physical disability, this project will pave the way for the development of future rehabilitation systems to help this broad and underserved population, add to the public health knowledge base that could help other physically disabled people in the future, and provide the commercial rehabilitation market a new tool for upper extremity physical rehabilitation that is both enjoyable and more effective than current physical rehabilitation methods. By increasing disabled patients' upper extremity mobility, this MR system will also increase their activities of daily living and their ability to use the internet to participate in online communities.