A Novel Human Centric CPS to Improve Motor/Cognitive Assessment and Enable Adaptive Rehabilitation

Abstract

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common motor disorder of central origin in childhood and affects at least 2 children per 1000 live births every year. This project will research new methods and tools in motor/cognitive assessment for small children (5‐8 years old) with Cerebral Palsy. It will develop a multimodal adaptive game system called CPLAY that integrates multiple views of cyber and physical components, and provides an assessment mechanism of rehabilitation progress through game activity monitoring as well as rehabilitation.

In the proposed framework, low level sensor data are processed into events that are then fed into the Event Processing/Identification Module. Unusual behaviors associated with the game are sent to the human expert/ operator (who closes the loop) with commands for changes to be made on the actuator controller. The actuator controller implements game changes that may involve new types of sensors, game strategies and metrics, input from audio or camera / robot activation, etc. The sensory input acquired from these changes is sent to the behavior recognition module. The goal for the proposed framework is to make it applicable to a wide range of rehabilitation therapy settings, including range of motion, therapeutic exercises, strengthening/weight‐bearing activities, dexterity practice (pincer, finger isolation), and functional activities.

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) will be used to assess rehabilitation impact. Near infrared (NIR) light (750‐900 nm) can penetrate the human scalp/skull, reach the brain, and it is absorbed by the oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO) and de‐oxygenated hemoglobin (HbR) in the tissue. fNIR is robust to motion artifacts, and it allows children to perform larger ranges of motion, such as those done during occupational therapy. fNIR will allow practitioners to see cortical activity due to everyday type of activity, and plastic changes which help improve children’s ability to perform these activities.

As part of the project, we have developed several games that can be used for CP rehabilitation therapy. In ongoing and future work, we will investigate the use of digital gloves as input devices, so as to get exact measurement of finger movement. We will develop games for CAVE (Computer Aided Virtual Environment) and the Kinect system. We will also use humanoid robots to hold the attention of the user during the game.

Pediatric occupational therapist and doctors are invited to use and evaluate the system. We have introduced our system in Cook’s Children hospital to parents of children with motor and cognitive challenges. Parents contacted us and had their children to try on this system, and this is an activity we will continue for the duration of the project. We will also collect fNIR data while the children are playing games, and we will correlate fNIR data with data collected in the game for assessment and evaluation.

Award ID: 1035913

 

  • CPS Domains
  • Medical Devices
  • Control
  • Platforms
  • Systems Engineering
  • Wireless Sensing and Actuation
  • Health Care
  • Robotics
  • Simulation
  • CPS Technologies
  • Foundations
  • National CPS PI Meeting 2012
  • 2012
  • Poster
  • Academia
  • CPS PI MTG 12 Posters & Abstracts
Submitted by Fillia Makedon on