SBIR Phase I: An immersive virtual reality platform for remote physical therapy and monitoring

The broader impact /commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to investigate the research and development of an intelligent, immersive, virtual reality (VR) platform for remote physical therapy and patient monitoring. This innovation enhances biomechanical analysis to facilitate telerehabilitation through off-the-shelf consumer VR head-mounted displays in patient homes and clinics, effectively providing a means for in-patient success metrics and full-body exercise guidance using a centralized, remote virtual platform. Such technology may have the ability to enable greater affordability, accessibility, and accuracy of physical therapy for patients and therapists alike. Patient throughput could potentially be doubled through remote visits in virtual environments and automated physical health documentation. In addition, the platform will be designed to support therapists working in marginalized communities of "medical deserts," where patients are uninsured and care is significantly limited by hospital capacity, physical distance, doctors per population, and cost. This software-as-a-service immersive physical therapy platform may reach a projected annual revenue of $2.08M USD. With remote tools and predictive physical therapy analytics, more individuals will receive access to treatment regardless of their socio-economic and demographic background. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will provide an immersive virtual reality environment where therapists can meet their patient in a 3D virtual clinic and use the platform's tools to aid in patient evaluation. This technology addresses the shortcomings of widely used current telehealth platforms (most often videoconferencing) where therapists find it difficult to perform common evaluations such as movement abilities and balance coordination tests. The goal of this project is to build an updated machine learning algorithm with integration on the virtual platform to enable therapists to remotely evaluate their patients with high accuracy biomechanical metrics. The goal is to achieve remote rehabilitation of patients that is comparable to that of in-person patient rehabilitation. In addition, pilot research will be performed with healthcare organizations to assess this technology in providing patient success metrics and exercise interaction through commercial head-mounted display virtual reality systems. This technology has the potential to positively change a consumer's physical therapy experience by significantly reducing traditional clinical and insurance costs, enabling remote access for populations of low-socioeconomic backgrounds, alleviating discomfort for patients, and increasing remote recovery insights. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.