This week, Thom visited Therapy Services at the Children’s Hospital, and had the chance to observe two patients with movement problems. He shadowed during wheelchair consultations and had the opportunity to learn more about how wheelchair components are selected and formed for patients, as well as the types of movement difficulties that patients deal with. We plan to follow up with one of the physical therapists, Beth O’Neal, about other chances to observe patients, specifically patients with movement problems that are directly relevant to our goals. We also plan to shadow during physical therapy sessions sometime in the next two weeks in order to better understand current treatments and how we could develop a device to contribute to physical therapy outcomes at home.
We also continued working on brainstorming this week. We plan to develop several Pugh charts in order to account for the different components of the project we need to solve - obtaining data on head position, providing feedback to the patient, and reporting data to clinicians. Our website, which was submitted on Sunday, will continue to be updated as we progress. This week, we began brainstorming potential solutions to the problem of head drop in patients who have conditions like CP and MS and who use wheelchairs. We are looking at two broad categories of solutions, neck support and biofeedback, and beginning the process of further subdividing categories of solutions.
We are also working to arrange a time with our client, Dr. Courtney Dunn, to see her patients and gain a better understanding of what solutions they are currently utilizing and what they would like to see in a future solution. In particular, we would like to observe firsthand the skill set of the patients to better understand which of our potential solutions would work best for them. This week, Thom gave our Preliminary Presentation and we watched the Preliminary Presentations of the other groups. From watching the other groups, we were able to get some ideas about other design specifications that we might want to consider.
We have begun the process of brainstorming possible solutions that would fulfill our project need/scope. Although this weekend will be Fall Break, we plan to meet or group call at least once to continue developing potential solutions. This will likely involve some research into available sensors and materials, since we will soon need a more concrete picture of each solution to compare the potential solutions based on cost, safety, and other factors. This week, we continued researching existing solutions, especially branching out into patents and commercially available devices. We discussed existing solutions with our client, Dr. Dunn, and Thom reached out to Dr. Kerri Morgan at the Enabling Mobility in the Community Lab, part of WUSTL OT.
We were also focused on writing our Preliminary Report and preparing our Preliminary Presentation this week. This included planning our basic schedule for the rest of the year using the Gantt Chart and dividing out responsibilities. Thom will give our Preliminary Presentation next week, Katelyn will give the Progress Presentation in December, and Emma will give the Verification and Validation Presentation in March. Next week, we will use our knowledge of the existing solution space as we think of potential solutions for head drop. We will likely also continue with research as needed to understand how existing solutions work and how they may be able to be improved upon. |
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Thom Ellison, Emma Huff, Katelyn Miyasaki Archives
April 2019
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