Projects

Cerebral Palsy is a motor-neurological impairment disorder that impairs motor functions due to brain damage as a baby. Babies between 6-24 months old that exhibit symptoms of cerebral palsy need an increased exposure to critical movement therapies targeting their neck, arm, core, and leg muscles to help them learn to move independently. All our research is based on the idea that increased exposure to physical therapy is critical especially for babies with CP in order to take advantage of the increased neuroplasticity of their still-forming brains. Due to insurance limitations, current therapists are only able to work with patients once a week on average for only 30 minutes at a time. We were also lucky enough to have an actual baby for testing and over the course of three tests, we found positive results showing an increased number of reaches for toys as well as an increased amount of time spent on her tummy without crying. Some of the biggest challenges we faced in designing a working prototype to provide an in-home system include preventing suffocation and encouraging babies to actively perform the movements we are targeting on their own. After talking with physical therapists who have experience working with babies and children with cerebral palsy, we focused our attention to create an in home system that with the touch of a button will tilt a child through a range of angles while swinging hanging toys past their view to stimulate them to flex their muscles to keep their balance and reach the toys. Therapists also recommended created autonomous sequences that tilt the platform to the beat of a song that the baby enjoys because they often dance with children on exercise balls in therapy sessions. We heeded their advice and our implementation of dance sequences with varying intensity levels can be seen in the video links below.