Multi-Component Design of a Mobile Rehabilitation Application for Remote Monitoring of Patients

This paper a will provide background and research outcomes for a student-led multi-University motion capture design project with the FDA Human Device Interaction Lab. This research project spawned from the FDA’s interest in studying mobile Apps used to collect information about a rehabilitation patient’s function outside of a laboratory setting. This is particularly important from a research perspective as it allows knowledge to be gathered about the reliability, safety, and efficacy of such devices, which can later inform human factors guidelines and regulatory oversight. While there is a wide range of applications for remote monitoring of patient function, this project focuses specifically on wearables used to track rehabilitative progress of individuals suffering from upper or lower limb impairment. These wearables may also be used to assess the efficacy of a new assistive technology intended to restore or augment function. The interdisciplinary student teams applied human-centered design principles to develop and prototype hardware and software components for a rotatable body-worn mobile device holder to remotely track rehabilitation progress. The design process and outcomes are presented along with insights on further development of system components.