Mobility limitations including gait and balance impairments are common in older adults, especially those with neurological de?cits. Gait and balance impairments are a major cause of falls and reduced quality of life. Although laboratory studies show that biofeedback during exercise training can improve motor performance, physical ther- apists do not have access to an overground gait biofeedback system for their patients. We will use this Phase II grant to 1) develop Mobility Rehab, a ?exible biofeedback system to provide visual and verbal biofeedback for gait training overground or on a treadmill for older adults with neurological de?cits, 2) thoroughly verify and validate Mobility Rehab in preparation for an FDA 510(k) clearance to market, and 3) use a pragmatic clinical trial to evaluate the e?ectiveness of Mobility Rehab on three hundred patients in a physical therapy clinic. This 2-year project has two speci?c aims:
AIM I : Prepare Mobility Rehab for commercialization (APDM). The objective of this aim is to optimize the visual feedback, add a verbal commands mode, and prepare the system for a commercial launch for personalized rehabilitation in the clinic.
AIM II : Determine the e?ectiveness of Mobility Rehab for gait training in adults with mobility disturbances (OHSU and NWRA). We predict that Mobility Rehab will be more e?ective for mobility rehabilitation than regular rehabilitation for adults with mobility disturbances.
We will use this Phase II grant to develop a ?exible biofeedback system (Mobility Rehab) to provide visual and verbal biofeedback for gait training overground or on a treadmill for adults with mobility disturbances, develop reports that show clinically actionable measures of gait and balance, and thoroughly verify and validate our technology in preparation for an FDA 510(k) clearance to market.
