Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems Grant

Principal Investigator/s: Ross Zafonte, DO

Co-Investigator/s: Rory Cooper, Ph.D., Donald Spaeth, Ph.D., Michael McCue, Ph.D.

2002-2007

Personal Powered Mobility for Persons with TBI

Project Principal Investigator: Rory A. Cooper, PhD

Project Co-Investigator(s): Michael Boninger, MD; Dan Ding, Ph.D.; Annmarie Kelleher, OTR/L; Diane Collins, MA, OTR/L; Rosemarie Cooper, MPT, ATP, Amol Karmarkar

The University of Pittsburgh received a NIDRR Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Model Systems of Care grant. This research and demonstration grants focuses primarily on developing and demonstrating a model system of care for persons with TBI with a focus on assistive technology.

HERL is investigating a new wheelchair driving training and evaluation system so that the TBI population can have safe, independent mobility. Virtual environments are inherently safe for training purposes. The two main aims of this study are to develop a realistic yet less over-whelming training scenario for people with TBI. A frequent outcome of TBI is a loss of visual fields and problems with maintaining attention. To better protect these individuals and to encourage them to make best use of their remaining vision, the prototype includes a head position monitor (HPM). The HPM is a light-weight shell similar to a wheelchair head rest. It tracks the driver's head position by means of a small magnet and an array of hall-effect transistors. A bird’s eye viewpoint virtual simulation of four tasks runs on a laptop computer which constantly reads participant’s input and head position. The participants drive a virtual chair in the virtual simulation using a special isometric joystick and conventional movement joystick and in forward and reverse orientation of virtual chair. The HPM makes sure that they don’t distract away form their driving tasks.

Results/Current Status: Twenty subjects have completed the required two visits as outlined in this study protocol. A preliminary analysis of data from eight subjects showed no significance difference in driving performance metrics like root mean squared error, average speed, etc. between isometric and conventional joysticks. Overall participants gradually developed their driving skills in virtual environment. Further analysis of data from all participants is in progress and it will indicate existing trends with a higher power.