The Mobility Toolkit: Electronically Augmented Assessment of Functional Recovery Following Lower-Extremity Trauma
Abstract
Lower-extremity injuries, ranging from simple to complex, are common in both the military and civilian populations. Objective functional assessment of patient outcomes is important to patients and clinicians and is a critical component of assessing and improving rehabilitation outcomes following battle and non-battle-related injuries. The proposed project involves studying the feasibility of a secure, Internet-connected, cloud-based data acquisition and analysis application and validation of standardized measures to assess, improve, and predict, within a predetermined degree of accuracy, outcomes and/or time to final outcome for specific injuries and specific patients. This Mobility Toolkit application is being developed for direct use in clinical practice and as a tool for continued research into initial treatment and therapeutic intervention after lower-extremity trauma. As part of that effort, the proposed project will provide funding to collect data on targeted lower-extremity injuries that occur frequently in the military and civilian setting and follow those patients through the recovery process as part of routine clinical follow-up visits. In its present form, the Mobility Toolkit is an easy to use, portable, “wearable motion capture lab” that provides meaningful objective information about physical performance for various mobility and stability tests. It is also an Internet-connected, cloud-based data storage and analysis system that is capable of accessing significant amounts of related data obtained from numerous widespread military and civilian medical facilities. The system has the ability to make performance-based tasks, like gait analysis in the clinic, a routine assessment procedure. By accessing data from large numbers of prior patients with similar demographics and injuries, however, the system also has the potential to provide meaningful clinical information to physicians, physical therapists, and other healthcare providers with regard to the treatment, projected recovery course, and eventual outcomes of current and future patients. This information can also be used to manage patient expectations regarding recovery and inform treatment decisions in order to support functional recovery following injury. There are significant opportunities to utilize the Mobility Toolkit, not only with active duty military, but also Veterans and civilian patients throughout their recovery and rehabilitation process. For Veterans, recovery from traumatic injuries can often continue for years following medical discharge from the military. For active duty military, injuries are common during both war and peacetime and represent a significant portion of unfitting conditions and those qualifying for medical discharge. Information regarding the course of expected recovery for specific injuries is particularly important when one considers the cost to train and retain active duty personnel. The opportunity to objectively measure rehabilitation following lower-extremity injury and establish trajectories of recovery for specific injury patterns would represent a significant advance in the measurement of patient outcomes. The ability to predict expected outcomes and times to final outcome, along with optimal therapy regimens, with some degree of certainty would significantly affect fitness decisions on a patient-by-patient basis. This factor has significant financial and career repercussions, not only for armed forces personnel, but for their families as well. The information gained in this study will aid in optimizing physical therapy resources, documenting specific patient attributes or therapy practices that impede or promote rapid increases in physical performance, improving return to duty, reducing the duration of time spent away from the unit, and maximizing functional recovery for all patients who have experienced musculoskeletal injury.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Oct 29, 2018
- Source ID
- W81XWH1810815
Entities
People
- Stephen Sims
Organizations
- Atrium Health
- United States Army