KInemATICTrainer

Our primary vision for this mixed reality project was to create a physical therapy training aid for those entering the field of physical therapy. In our project, physical therapy students will engage with a virtual dummy. The virtual dummy, acting as a stand in for a physical therapy patient, will allow students and trainees to practice techniques that would otherwise be practiced on expensive medical manikins. Upon starting the program, trainees will be presented with the option of choosing which physical therapy techniques they’d like to practice. These could include a variety of different exercises such as shoulder rotations, scaptions (the elevation of the scapular plane), shoulder extensions, and possibly more. From here, users will be placed into a physical therapy room where they will see a manikin in which they can manipulate and another manikin which will be demoing the movement and techniques for each specific scenario. Our current model allows for an internal shoulder rotation exercise used for strengthening and shoulder injury prevention.

When the trainee approaches the manikin they will be prompted through the use of visual cues where to place their hands on the dummy. As the trainee manipulates the manikin and follows the training exercise they will be informed of techniques to remember (such as reminding the trainee to keep the patients elbow close to their body). Upon successfully completing the training exercise the user will be notified with an auditory cue and returned to the starting screen.

The use of a virtual manikin and a virtual environment come with many affordances not found in traditional training methods. The virtual mannequins will help alleviate the exorbitant costs of a providing medical manikins (ranging from $1500-$3000 per manikin) for students. Further, costs found in hiring trainers and providing training locations can be cut through the affordances of distance based and virtual learning.