Delivering Effective Physical Therapy Remotely via a Wearable Sleeve and Mobile Application; Implementing a New Communication Platform in Our Current Healthcare System 303 views

There are many issues in the physical therapy industry that can be improved with a new system of care involving motion capture technology. These issues within physical therapy also exist within the United States healthcare industry as a whole. These two theses analyze the problems within physical therapy and healthcare as a whole, and provide potential solutions to both of these respectively. The technical thesis attempts to address current problems with physical therapy; especially during a pandemic where at-home exercise programs are becoming more common. In the current industry, patient non-compliance of their at-home treatments is significantly high. A couple reasons for this could be patients do not feel engaged with their treatment and poor communication between the patient and their therapist. The BravePT system that we developed provides solutions to these problems by incorporating a wearable motion capture sleeve, mobile phone application, and web portal into an integrated system. Patients are assigned exercises by their therapist through the phone app, wear the sleeve while performing the exercises, and therapists can access their patient data through the online web portal. The mobile application is gamified, allowing patients to earn rewards and have more interactive exercises than traditionally. By incorporating all of the elements of this system, it address the issues of poor communication and patient apathy. My STS thesis took the original problems and solutions to physical therapy and broadened them to healthcare in general. I found that virtually all branches of medicine have similar issues when it comes to communication and patient non-compliance of treatment. I analyzed how the BravePT system could be implemented within our current healthcare system and what challenges and changes would be required if the system were to be. I found that trying to implement new systems into existing ones is a very difficult task, especially within the healthcare industry. Working on the technical portion of my capstone was a great experience. I really liked the idea of the project, and I personally believe that we made a lot of progress in just one semester. It was neat to have experience working in a structured environment; our team had an office space that we used to work, have meetings, and discuss ideas. We all worked in the office at similar times and it was great to have the ability to bounce ideas off each other and get help when we were stuck on a bug. I would have liked more time to work on my STS thesis, but I accomplished what I set out research.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering Technical Advisor: Harry Powell STS Advisor: Sean Ferguson Technical Team Members: William Kodama, Hart Lukens, Evan Magnusson, Christopher Hassert

English

2021-05-12