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| The Reach Project | ||
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| Author(s): | Michael Jefferson Holly Eldi Lamar Hines |
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| Instructor: | Schneider, Michael / Perr, Anita | |
| Class: | Developing Assistive Technology | |
| URL: | http://www.michaeljefferson.net/portfolio/reach.html | |
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| Keywords: | assistive technology, video tracking, games, occupational therapy, education | |
| The Reach Project is an exploration of how video tracking can be incorporated into the therapeutic setting involving children with disabilities to facilitate and encourage functional movements and patterns. | ||
| Many times, children and adolscents with physical disabilities are unable to interact with their environment due to their impairments. This can make therapeutic recreation and rehabilitation a frustrating and challenging task. These issues can prohibit a child from moving functionally for carryover into their daily lives. The Reach Project is an exploration of how video tracking can be leveraged for extend functional movements within a fun and rewarding, therapeutic environment. The Reach Project is dynamic and can be adapted to the needs and capabilities of the participant. This system allows the child or adolescent to combine both the physical world with the digital world, creating both a fun and therapeutic environment to facilitate participation in the rehablitation process. The user can participate in many settings, including bedside, for the child that has minimal movements. Overall, the Reach Project can be an important tool in facilitating functional movements that will carryover into the everyday life of the child, in leisure, education, and self care needs. | ||
| Background: | As defined by the American Occupational Therapy Association, Occuational Therapy is the therapeutic use of purposeful and meaningful occpuations (goal-directed activities) to evaluate and treat individuals who have a disease or disorder, impairment, activity limitation, or participation restriction which interfers with their ability to function independently in daily life roles, and promote health and wellness. When working with the pediatric population, this is acheieved in many functional and dynamic settings. These settings include but are not limited to a sensory integration gymnasium, therapeutic clinic, hospital rooms, and educational classrooms. Our goal, when designing the Reach Project, was to create an adaptable system for the current therapeutic environments. This program would assist in acheiving the goals of the occupational therapist to increase the independence and function of the child. During development, we looked at the use of video tracking within the art world, the use of a video camera as a motion sensor for movements. The Reach Project is an alternative therapeutic activity to be incorporated with the occupational therapy treatment session to facilitate functional movement patterns in children for carryover into their daily lives. | |
| Audience: | Pediatric population, ranging in age from approximately 24 months to 18 years old. The target audience can have varying physical impairments which range from but are not limited to Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury, stroke, brain tumor, senory integration issues, fractures, trunk instability, Friedreich's ataxia, or impaired tone. | |
| User Scenario: | A child with a primary diagnosis of cerebral palsy is brought into the Occupational Therapy gym accompanied by his/her Occupational Therapist. The child is assisted by his/her therapist to lay on his/her back on the mat. The therapist loads the Reach Project from a PC/Laptop in the gym. There is a web camera mounted close to the ceiling, which is attached to the PC/Laptop and a projector, which is pointed upwards. Sandbags of many colors are aligned around the child. Looking up, the child sees a digital target shape projected on the wall. The child is instructed to "reach" and move a colored sandbag, which is mapped to a matching colored circle in the digital world. As the child moves the sandbag, video-tracking technology allows a corresponding circle to follow the sandbag. The child will be instructed to carry the activity out with many different colored sandbags and move them into the target, which can be dynamically placed. The child's image will be projected onto the ceiling during the entire activity. | |
| Technical System Description: | Project Reach makes use of video and color tracking in Processing to create an interactive learning environment based on simple occupational therapy objects and tools. Ingredients: 1 webcam 1 projector 1 laptop or PC running Processing 3 or more sand bags, balls or other simple objects | |
| Project References, Research and Literature: | TEAM Lamar Hines Holly Eldi Michael Jefferson We would like to the NYU Medical Center, RUSK Institute for educating us on occupational therapy within the pediatric population, using their site for trials, and allowing ineractions with the children. PROJECT DETAIL http://stage.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~ms1434/atech/index.php/Project/ProjectReach INSPIRATION Camille Utterback http://www.camilleutterback.com CODE Adaptations in Processing to original code written by Dan O'Sullivan and Danny Rozin. | |
| Conclusions: | This is a tool that has great promise in the Occupational Therapy field and with some lower level programming and richer admin functionality could be a great product. | |