Improving the Monitoring of Post-Operative Patient Mobility

Author

Owen T. Lacey, University of AkronFollow
Alexandria Magyar-Averin, University of AkronFollow
Elena Ewing, University of AkronFollow
Samuel Elliott, University of AkronFollow
Cameron Lazor, University of AkronFollow

College

College of Engineering and Polymer Science

Date of Last Revision

2023-05-04 19:48:14

Major

Biomedical Engineering

Honors Course

4800:492

Number of Credits

2

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Date of Expected Graduation

Spring 2021

Abstract

Patient post-operative care is essential in attaining positive patient outcomes. To ensure proper blood circulation for recovery and healing is achieved, a patient's mobility is monitored. However, medical professionals aren't always available to continuously monitor patient progress. The clinical need for a medical device to monitor and quantify patient movement automatically is derived and addressed here. By designing a novel device and associated code, an engineering solution to this clinical need can be developed to monitor and improve patient post-operative outcomes in the absence of a medical professional. After completing research on the clinical need and gathering information from stakeholders (stakeholder requirements), engineering requirements were derived to aid in the development of a solution. These engineering requirements guided the development of the designed solution to this clinical need. Boston University's Activity Measure for Post-Acute Care's Basic Mobility Domain was utilized to derive patient mobility scores. Once one brainstormed solution was selected for implementation, prototyping began to create and test it against the engineering requirements and stakeholder requirements. The outcome of this project provides a framework for a novel, wrist-mounted medical device that can collect patient movement data and quantify it with respect to the AM-PAC's Basic Mobility Domain.

Research Sponsor

James Keszenheimer

First Reader

B. Audrey Nguyen

Second Reader

Marnie Saunders

Honors Faculty Advisor

James Keszenheimer

Recommended Citation

Lacey, Owen T.; Magyar-Averin, Alexandria; Ewing, Elena; Elliott, Samuel; and Lazor, Cameron, "Improving the Monitoring of Post-Operative Patient Mobility" (2021). Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects. 1309.
https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/honors_research_projects/1309