CAREER: Aquatic Therapy Assist-Tool Using a Real-Time Underwater Physiological and Musculokinetic Monitoring in Personalized Stroke Rehabilitation

水疗是一种在水中进行的物理疗法，广泛用于帮助中风患者康复。水的好处是让患者更容易、更少痛苦地进行康复锻炼。在水上治疗和康复中，治疗师了解治疗如何影响每个患者的表现，以创建对他们最有效的个性化计划，这是至关重要的。然而，目前的研究还没有对这一方面给予足够的重视，而主要是比较患者治疗前后的进展。治疗师在实践中依赖于他们的观察、直觉、经验和专业知识，因为他们没有可用的技术来准确测量和分析他们的患者在水中锻炼时的身体和肌肉运动。这意味着治疗师无法实时调整他们的指导，以确保他们的患者正确地进行练习，并从练习中获得最大好处。持续监测和分析患者在水上治疗期间的表现，可以为治疗如何影响他们的体能提供有价值的见解。这可以导致制定针对每个人的需求的优化培训计划，从而实现更高效和更有效的康复。该项目旨在了解人体如何在水下工作，以及它如何对水上疗法中的不同动作和练习做出反应。这些知识将被用来开发更个性化和更有效的水上康复计划，特别是针对患有神经障碍和疾病的人。这项研究有可能带来治疗这些疾病的新的和改进的方法。本项目将为治疗师设计一个辅助工具，利用为水环境设计的可穿戴系统和疏水性生物信号传感器来研究水上治疗过程中的生理和运动改善，并允许他们基于变革性方法创建新的评估指标，用于中风康复中的个人身体评估和个性化水上治疗。本项目将(1)设计和评估用于水下生理和肌肉运动监测的人体工学可穿戴系统；(2)研究中风康复中水疗的评估指标；(3)根据结果开发系统的个性化水疗辅助工具。该项目将与临床水上治疗师一起评估拟议的可穿戴系统和评估指标，包括佩戴性、功能性、可用性和有效性。除了三个研究目标外，个性化医疗和康复的跨学科研究框架将被整合到教育目标中，即扩大大学预科、本科生和研究生对医疗工程的参与，培养跨学科研究小组和包容性培训，并将研究整合到多学科课程开发中。最终，该项目将带来水生疗法的范式转变。这一奖项反映了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。

Aquatic therapy is a type of physical therapy that takes place in water and is widely used to help stroke patients recover. Water has benefits that make it easier and less painful for patients to perform rehabilitation exercises. In aquatic therapy and rehabilitation, it is essential for therapists to understand how the therapy affects each patient's performance to create a personalized program that will be most effective for them. However, current research has not focused enough on this aspect, and instead mainly compares patients' progress before and after therapy. Therapists rely on their observations, intuitions, experience, and expertise in their practice since there is no technology available for them to accurately measure and analyze their patients' physical and muscle movements when they exercise in water. This means that therapists are not able to adjust their instructions in real-time to ensure that their patients are doing the exercises correctly and getting the most benefit from them. Continuous monitoring and analysis of the patients' performance during aquatic therapy can provide valuable insights into how the therapy is affecting their physical abilities. This can lead to the development of an optimized training program that is tailored to each individual's needs, resulting in more efficient and effective rehabilitation. This project aims to understand how the human body works underwater and how it responds to different movements and exercises in aquatic therapy. This knowledge will be used to develop more personalized and effective aquatic rehabilitation programs, particularly for people with neurological disorders and diseases. This research has the potential to lead to new and improved ways of treating these conditions.This project will design an assist-tool for therapists to investigate physiological and motor improvements during aquatic therapy using a wearable system designed for the water environment and utilizing hydrophobic bio-signal sensors, and to allow them to create new evaluation metrics for individual physical assessment and personalized aquatic therapy in stroke rehabilitation based on transformative approach. This project will (1) design and evaluate an ergonomic wearable system for underwater physiological and musculokinetic monitoring, (2) investigate evaluation metrics for aquatic therapy in stroke rehabilitation, and (3) develop a systematic personalized aquatic therapy assist-tool based on the outcomes. The project will evaluate the proposed wearable system and evaluation metrics in terms of wearability, functionality, usability, and effectiveness with clinical aquatic therapists. Along with three research aims, interdisciplinary research framework for personalized healthcare and rehabilitation will be integrated into the educational goal of broadening the participation of pre-college, undergraduate, and graduate students in healthcare engineering, fostering an interdisciplinary research group and inclusive training, and integrating the research into multidisciplinary course development. Eventually, this project will yield a paradigm shift in aquatic therapy.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.