Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Telerehabilitation

Principal Investigator/s: David Brienza, PhD; Michael McCue, PhD

Co-Investigator/s: Shirley G. Fitzgerald, PhD

Funding Source: DOE/NIDRR

$4,249,717

2004-2009

RERC on Telerehabilitation Website: http://www.rerctr.pitt.edu/

The University of Pittsburgh submits this proposal for an RERC on Telerehabilitation. We intend to serve people with disabilities by researching and developing methods, systems, and technologies that support remote delivery of rehabilitation and home health care services for individuals who have limited local access to comprehensive medical rehabilitation outpatient and community-based services. We propose research and development activities in the areas of telerehabilitation infrastructure and architecture, telerehabilitation clinical assessment modeling, teleassessment for the promotion of communication function in children with disabilities, remote wheeled mobility assessment, behavioral monitoring and job coaching in vocational rehabilitation, and remote accessibility assessment of the built environment.

Our team and collaborators include the Departments of Rehabilitation Science and Technology, Health Information Management, and Communication Science and Disorders in Pitt’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences; the NSF sponsored e-Design Center in the Dept. of Industrial Engineering; the Medical Robotics Group at Carnegie Mellon University; AnthroTronix, Inc.; AT Sciences, Inc.; and the Center for Telemedicine Law. Our technology transfer program targets private and public sectors. Because we recognize that it is both important and timely to link this RERC to the Olmstead decision, the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare’s COMMCARE Waiver program managed by Three Rivers Center for Independent Living and the Allegheny County Department of Human Services’ Office of Elderly Affairs will involve their traumatic brain injury and elderly populations in tasks and dissemination efforts.