Our Focus

In the hospital directly following strokes, there is a period of time where expressive aphasia patients have not yet met with a speech language pathologist or begun communication therapy. Those patients are oftentimes unable to communicate with their doctors or nurses effectively beyond answering simple yes or no questions, currently hospitals will use print outs of the alphabet or simple phrases for patients to point to which limits communication. Nurses will oftentimes be put in the position of trying multiple inventive solutions to try and communicate with patients, which can be time consuming. Our proposed solution to this need is a portable, easily cleaned device that allows patients to communicate words, thoughts, and needs to the clinician responsible for their care.

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Our most recent fully functional prototype can be seen on the left. Some key features are 20 buttons with specific phrases that provide the patient with clear and easy to use options to communicate with a clinician. It's important to note that the buttons are grouped by similar phrases and are arranged to favor left handed use because these stroke patients usually have better dexterity with their left hand.  The LCD screen provides a clear message to a clinician and can be reset with a push of a button. There is also a white board present on the back to allow for communication of other phrases not included on the buttons if needed.  

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Personal Project Contributions

My first key action in the 1st semester was during the ethnographical research process. I specifically contacted and made connections with local expressive aphasia therapy organizations to gain information about the unmet clinical need from a clinicians perspective. Specifically I met virtually with Bill Connors of AphasiaToolBox and Brooke Lang of Integrative Reconnective Aphasia Therapy. I also created one of our initial low resolution prototypes out of foam core seen at the bottom of the page which is a modified white board design with an electronic panel for additional communication needs. This prototype was sent along with a couple others to contacts we've made to gain feedback and improve our iterative design process. I was also involved in formulating design controls such as User Needs, Design Inputs, and early Verification and Validation plans.

 

In the 2nd semester, I was again heavily involved in gaining feedback regarding our design from the contacts I made last semester and other clinicians such as Dr. Claire Yanta at UPMC department of Neurology who provided great expertise on selection of phrases on the buttons and button placement. Various verification and validation tests took place this semester as well to test the success of the device after the design was frozen. Specifically, I wrote test protocols for the Water spill and One-Hand verification tests and the Manageability validation test. I was involved in the testing for the One-Hand test and wrote the report indicating that the device was found to be successful meaning message transmission was possible with the use of only a left hand. Also, I collaborated with my fellow group member, Jess Weber, on getting the prototype to include bluetooth integration to send a message to a nearby smart phone when a button is pushed. Finally, I constructed and edited the video shown above which showcases our design process and progress over the course of both semesters.

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This senior design medical device course exposed me to several important aspects of a career in bioengineering. Some of the most noteworthy were:

• Ethnographical research 

• Clinical unmet need discovery

• The FDA regulatory process

• Statistical design of experiments

• Finite Element Analysis and Computational Fluid Dynamics using Solidworks

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