CHCS - Perspectives - Summer/Fall 2014

PERSPECTIVES • SUMMER–FALL 2014 49 PHYSICAL THERAPY Fort Lauderdale GOOGLE GLASS: Exploring Wearable Device Technology GOOGLE TEAM Alicia Fernandez-Fernandez, D.P.T., Ph.D., PT Assistant Professor Debra Stern, D.P.T., D.B.A., M.S.M., PT Associate Professor and Director of Clinical education Heather Hettrick, Ph.D., PT, CWS, CLT Associate Professor Kevin Kunkel, Ph.D., M.S.P.T., MLD-CDT Assistant Professor Kim Smith, D.P.T., PT Assistant Professor By Debra F. stern, D.P.T., D.B.A., M.s.M., PT, Associate Professor and Director of Clinical education, and Margot Madeson-stern, Incites Consultant The Physical Therapy Department re- cently submitted two research grant re- quests, both of which were specifically designed to utilize Google Glass— Google’s new wearable technology. The respective research will focus on the areas of student/patient interaction, clinical visits, fall prevention techniques, and bal- ance training. The larger of the two grants, spear- headed by Dr. Alicia Fernandez-Fernan- dez, D.P.T., Ph.D., PT, assistant professor is the prestigious Google Research Award, which was established in 2005 by Google to support cutting-edge research in computer science, engineering, and re- lated fields. In order to qualify for such an award, our Technology Committee collaborated with Glassic LLC—a wear- able technology developmental firm in California—to develop custom Glass software needed to conduct its research. Other collaborators included Ithaca Col- lege and the Incites consulting firm. No- tification was scheduled for August 2014. Under the category of human-com- puter interaction, the PT Department’s Technology Committee hopes to use Google Glass and its benefits to tackle falling among aging adults, whereby falls are a major public health problem in the United States that cause enormous human and monetary cost. The research goal is to determine if Glass can provide a quick, reliable way to (1) assess people who are at risk for falls, (2) be used to deliver balance training materials, (3) monitor safety and progress during the training period, and (4) result in a reduced number of falls and im- proved balance skills during functional activities. In order to explore these capa- bilities, the researchers will compare a Google Glass-based assessment/training program to a conventional program, with the hope of improving balance skills during functional activities and reducing fall frequency. The second grant, submitted to the NSU President’s Faculty Research and Development Grant program, addresses how technology provides an opportunity to utilize the Medical Communication Behavior System (MCBS) tool to assess student interpersonal skills without re- quiring the observer to attend to multiple tasks. In addition, wearable computer de- vices will provide the opportunity to record student-patient encounters from a patient’s perspective, in contrast to con- ventional video recording methods that represent the point of view of an outside observer. As such, the ability to record a student-patient encounter from a pa- tient’s perspective may provide a unique way for students to see themselves per- forming a task and how they were per- ceived by the patient. Terry Morrow Nelson, Ph.D., assistant dean of student affairs, and Jonathon May, M.A., assistant director of student affairs, will be participating in the stu- dent-assessment component of this grant if it is awarded. Using wearable computers in the med- ical industry in places such as surgery and medical robotics is already a proven benefit. If received, these two research projects would also put physical therapy and academia on the wearable device technology map.