gcoe,

Thank you so much for your input on my project. I am one of three engineers working on this design project. This project was given to us by a physical therapist at a local hospital who also teaches at my college. She has given us input on what she would like the device to do and at this time the device will be specifically designed to be used on patients in the sitting position only.

Without getting into too much detail, the sensors I will be using will work similar to ones found in the nintendo Wii hand controllers. They can sense what direction they are moving in and will be relaying numerical position data at least every 1/10th of a second continuously so that I can map and record the patient's position, movement, and path. I am also meeting with a movement specialist along with a few other physical therapists that work with patients who have suffered from a stroke or head trauma. The online information that I'm gathering here is so I can get input from people outside of my local area. I am wanting to learn specifics on how other therapists evaluate their patients when looking at sitting position and sway. I am being told by the sponsor of this project that at this time they evaluate their patient's condition by having them do specific tasks and rating them on a poor, fair, good, normal scale (I know this is over simplified and incomplete with respect to the types and extent of testing used). This makes the evaluations somewhat subjective . The goal is to provide numerical feedback for these types of tasks. It will help to more accurately keep track of a patient's progress during rehabilitation and to better express the severity of their condition.

I know very little about this field of treatment - or any other medically related fields. The sponsor said that many of her patients will sit slumped over to one side thinking that they are actually sitting upright. It could be from physical weakness like you had mentioned or from some brain impairment. The sensors will be able to be set to a "zero" point showing what would be a correct sitting posture, and all measurements will be taken from that point of reference. To me, this seems like an odd assignment for a mechanical engineering student - but it's the task we were given.