Inspiration
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome affects 5 percent of the working population, about 8,000,000 people, in the United States and results in the most days lost in the American workplace. Accordingly, one of the most frequent surgical treatments is carpal tunnel release (260,000 surgeries per year). And although symptoms may be relieved, most patients are told to partake in physical therapy to recover full wrist function. Unfortunately, therapy can be inconvenient and expensive. Patients may begin to skip sessions regardless of the importance therapy has to full muscle recovery.
What it does
LeapMed was created to solve this problem in a fun and innovative way! Imagine yourself as an outpatient, who has been prescribed with weeks of therapy. Instead of visiting a medical professional for rehab, do it yourself in the comfort of your own home using LeapMed! We will coach you towards a healthier hand! Attach the Leap Motion sensor to your home computer. Download the LeapMed app. Relax, and play the minigames to the best of your ability...that’s it!
How we built it
Using the functionalities of the Leap Motion sensor and some clever vector physics, we were able to register each and every stretch as a very specific type of gesture that is recognized by our program. Then we made a game out of it to keep the stretches random and interesting.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Our program has a lot of features one would expect from a professional physical therapy session. For instance, each orientation command given during game-play will not repeat twice - thereby eliminated muscle overuse. Furthermore, we know that the heart of therapy lies in multiple sessions so we have imputed functionality that increases the constraints to our stretches as the weeks go by, essentially making the exercises more strenuous as you are regaining mobility. Post rehab, clinicians can analyze collected statistics that show the number of days taken to reach full muscle ability (i.e. max score). Here they can ensure that the patient's recovery proceeded on the correct time scale by comparing to the mean recovery time.
Implications of LeapMed
Considering the time saved from outpatient clinic visits, both for the patient and the medical professional, not to mention the insurance cost savings, hospitals can adopt this solution and rent it out to patients undergoing light physical therapy or use it as a method to keep patients exercising at home. This decreases co-pay costs for patients and opens up the schedules of physicians.
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