SmartHub: A Manual Wheelchair Activity Tracking Device for Patients and Clinicians
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Date
2020-05
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The Ohio State University
Abstract
In America, nearly 1.5 million people use manual wheelchairs in their day-to-day lives. These users are typically paralyzed from the waist down after experiencing a spinal cord injury (SCI), stroke (CVA), or diagnosed with cerebral palsy. These patients are fit for manual wheelchairs because their upper extremities are healthy and fully functional. However, the repeated strain of soft tissue in the shoulder and wrist joints from movement in a manual wheelchair leaves these patients highly susceptible to upper extremity injury. Nearly 70% of all manual wheelchair users will develop some form of upper extremity injury eventually leading to increase health costs and discomfort. These injuries can be mitigated by improving sub-optimal biomechanics of wheelchair propulsion. Metrics such as stroke frequency, velocity, stroke force, and stroke distance provide key insights to determine the root cause of these injuries.
SmartWheel is a current legacy product used within assistive technology clinics for collecting and analyzing propulsion metrics. However, due to several factors, the SmartWheel is restricted to clinical settings, leaving data collection to simple tests. This collected data does not form a complete picture of how a patient is using their wheelchair since it is not able to capture a patient's day-to-day metrics. SmartHub is a concept medical device that aims to serve the capability gaps of the SmartWheel by tracking propulsion metrics inside and outside of the clinic. SmartHub has seen contributions from an Assistive Device Capstone group, and two previous master students creating SmartHub I and II respectively. The goal of SmartHub III is to optimize the internal component layout and existing data collection software to create an unobtrusive form factor. SmartHub III effectively decreased the device width by 30% while improving the overall device experience, moving the device a step closer to its market-ready state.
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Keywords
Manual Wheelchair Users, SmartWheel, SmartHub, Rehabilitation, SmartHub Manual Wheelchair Device, Upper Extremity Injury