Senior Design Projects

ECS193 A/B Winter & Spring 2023

Hand therapy app for smart phones

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Dr. Clifford Pereira
UC Davis Medical Center

Project's details

Hand therapy app for smart phones
Hand injuries annually account for over $740 million in health care costs per year, and is one of the most common injuries presenting to the ER at UC Davis. Additionally, since UC Davis is the only level I trauma center in north california, many of these patients are transferred in from remote areas and live over 5-6 hrs away. After their surgical wounds have healed, the postoperative care focuses on improving hand function via hand therapy. However it is sometimes difficult for patients to drive to a specialist hand therapist to get the appropriate and timely hand therapy required to regain hand function.
I am proposing developing a smart phone app that will have a list of previously recorded videos of a certified hand therapist demonstrating the hand exercises that each injury / condition requires. The hand surgeon can 'prescribe' the hand therapy required by simply selecting the requisite exercises from the list of videos. The patients can then perform the exercises at home without having to drive to a hand therapist. There is a similar app that was developed by Chelsea NHS, UK (called Hand therapy), but it can only used on iphones, and has areas that can be improved as noted in the deliverable section below.
app development
1) Hand therapy app that has previously recorded videos of hand exercises required for each condition/ injury.
2) These can be selected by the hand surgeon, as well as frequency and duration of each exercise
3) Reminders that are sent to patients to complete their hand therapy sessions, with a message sent to next of kin to remind the patient if exercises are not completed.
4) Patient compliance would be uploaded to electronic health records/ EPIC for physicians to follow patient progress.
5) Physician alerts emailed if patient misses a few days of completing the prescribed exercises
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30-60 min weekly or more
Client wishes to keep IP of the project
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