BME 4550 – Introduction to Rehabilitation Engineering

Fall 2015

Instructor:  David Chen and Christopher Lunsford MD

Undergraduate Record Description:  Rehabilitation engineering is the use of engineering science and principles to develop technological solutions and devices to aid the recovery of physical and cognitive functions lost because of disease or injury (resna.org).  Rehabilitation engineers design and build devices and systems to meet a wide range of needs that can assist individuals with mobility, communication, hearing, vision, and cognition. These tools help people with day-to-day activities and tasks related to employment, independent living, and education.  This course will explore clinical cases in physical medicine and rehabilitation and students will better understand the needs and goals of patients who use assistive devices.

This course will be very hands-on, be project centered and explore the subject of rehabilitation engineering as well as human centered design.  Students will be expected to seek, investigate, and research a project of their own choosing.  The course will be held in partnership with the UVA School of Architecture, the UVA School of Medicine, and the US Veterans Association.

Prerequisite: Permission of the instructor

Textbooks and other required materials:

• Class readings
• Design notebook

Location: TBD

Schedule: Monday Wednesday Friday from 9:00-9:50

Course Expectations

This class is intended to be very design centered and hands on.  Students are expected to design, build, and rebuild their ideas.  We will be visual and use physical models to articulate our ideas.  The midterm will be a paper that discusses a clinical need area of rehabilitation medicine.  The final exam will be a studio presentation of the student’s semester project.

Grading:  Regular assignments will include students working on small teams to tackle a series of design problems in the field of rehabilitation engineering.  Students are also expected to keep a design journal, which will be submitted to the instructor on a regular basis.  The journal should include notes, sketches, and designs as part of the class.  The midterm exam will be written independently and the final exam will be a group-based design project.

Final projects will focus on a design need in the field of rehabilitation engineering.  Teams will thoroughly describe the native biomechanics or biological mechanisms, include human factors and behavioral analysis and propose a novel design to address that need.  Teams must articulate design constraints and describe the solution using drawings and a physical model.  Teams must also articulate testing protocols to evaluate the functionality of their designs.