PhysioCircle

What it does

PhysioCircle is a training system that provides the correct and effective application of chest physiotherapy method applied by physiotherapists or patient relatives to patients. Thus, people with respiratory diseases can breathe easily.

Your inspiration

According to World Health Organization, more than 1 billion people have respiratory diseases. Chest physiotherapy is a method applied for these patients to breathe comfortably. For patients who do not have access to costly devices, chest physiotherapy applied daily by the physiotherapist or patient relatives is an effective treatment method. However, the accuracy and effectiveness of this method depend on the knowledge and experience of the person who applies it. There is a need for an education system design to increase the number of physiotherapists and patient relatives who are competent in this physiotherapy method worldwide.

How it works

PhysioCircle consists of; a) Smart Vest, b) Adult Mannequin, c) Tablet App, and d) Desktop App. a) Smart Vest includes ten force sensors. It detects the location, intensity, frequency, and duration data of each tap applied to it by students. It transfers this data to the cloud system via Bluetooth. b) The mannequin has adult human dimensions, and human skin feel. It is fully compatible with the smart vest. c) There are physiotherapy exercises for different patient cases in the tablet application. By using these exercises, students can practice chest physiotherapy on the smart vest whenever and wherever they want. In addition, trainers can add their own physiotherapy programs to the application. d) The data of all the physiotherapy exercises performed by the students can be viewed on the desktop application. It provides access to detailed reports of each student.

Design process

The design process starts with researching chest physiotherapy. Afterward, information about the current education system was obtained by meeting with physiotherapy trainers. The contents of mobile applications were determined according to the needs of teachers and students. The first vest and application designs were made in light of this information gathered. Electronic card design and production were carried out to receive data from the sensors used in the smart vest. The software works of the applications were completed, and the prototype was created. User tests were conducted with physiotherapy students and teachers using the prototype. Design revisions observed in these tests and suggested by users were made. At the last point, the positions of the physiotherapy points on the smart vest were corrected. It was decided that the tablet application would be more appropriate for students to practice whenever they wanted. The content of the desktop application has been expanded so that teachers can easily review all the data. Reporting feature added.

How it is different

There are different products used for educational purposes in the field of health. However, there is no training equipment related to respiratory physiotherapy. That's why PhysioCircle is the first design project in this field. In addition, the entire design process was carried out with physiotherapy students and instructors. In this way, a comprehensive system design was created for user needs. On the other hand, PhysioCircle is an IoT project that offers both physical and digital solutions. It prepares students in advance for situations they may encounter in real life. It also reports each physiotherapy data of the student to the teacher in a comparative way. In this way, it is ensured that each student learns chest physiotherapy correctly and effectively.

Future plans

PhysioCircle currently only has a smart vest design suitable for an adult manikin. In the future, it is planned to design smart vests suitable for child and baby sizes. My first future goal is to enable PhysioCircle to be used in physical therapy and rehabilitation faculties. In this way, the education of the students will become more efficient. My second goal is to educate patients and their families in underdeveloped countries through PhysioCircle. Chest physiotherapy is a method that people can apply without needing any equipment. Low-income people trained in chest physiotherapy will be able to provide self-treatment.

Awards

The first version of PhysioCircle was invited to the Global Grad Show 2018 in Dubai. Participating in this program, where innovative design solutions from different countries were invited, gave me the motivation to develop my project.