Project Grant 90IFRE0087

This federal Project Grant award of $499,450.00 from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) under CFDA 93.433 supports a 3-year research project at The Ohio State University to develop and implement an evidence-based protocol for periodic wheelchair follow-up, repair, and maintenance. The goal is to reduce wheelchair breakdowns, improve health and mobility outcomes for wheelchair users, and promote the adoption of these practices in...

This Project Grant award of $150,000.00 from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Program supports research on developing smart technologies to evaluate and enhance building accessibility for people with disabilities. The key activities include: Conducting a community meeting to understand the environmental experiences and stressors faced by wheelchair users in the built environment. Further developing a monitoring system called...

This Project Grant award for $1,438,444 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865), aims to establish the relationship between the biomechanical demands of manual wheelchair propulsion and median nerve health in individuals with spinal cord injury (SCI). The key objectives are to determine if manual wheelchair users with SCI who apply smaller forces to the...

This Project Grant award from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), under the Discovery and Applied Research for Technological Innovations to Improve Human Health program (CFDA 93.286), provides $613,744 to Assistive Technology Development Inc. to develop a lightweight, cost-effective robotic telerehabilitation device for patients with musculoskeletal conditions. The device will provide motorized exercise modes coupled with blood flow restriction to enhance the...

This $300,000 National Science Foundation project grant will support the development of remotely operated reconfigurable walker robots for eldercare services through February 2025. Funded under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering program, the award recipient Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Volunteer Services, Inc. will conduct research to design a multi-functional robotic system that can alter its physical configuration to navigate residential environments. The robot is...

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, awarded a $1,478,518 Project Grant under the Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research program (CFDA 93.865) to Optimal Mobility Inc. This 2-year grant, with a project period from September 5, 2025 to August 31, 2027, will fund the development of a Pediatric Manual Mobile Standing Wheelchair (PEDMMSWC). This first-of-its-kind device will enable children...

This Project Grant award from the Administration for Community Living's National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (CFDA 93.433) provides $249,999 to The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York to assess the effectiveness of a new accessibility rating system called MED-AUDIT. The primary goals are to: 1) confirm the usefulness of accessibility ratings for optimizing consumer decision-making for home health medical products through a discrete...

The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, doing business as Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, will conduct the "POWER FORWARD STUDY: A CROSS-SECTOR, MULTISITE CLINICAL TRIAL OF A POWERED KNEE-ANKLE-FOOT ORTHOSIS" project under a $1.679 million project grant from the Department of the Army Medical Command. The grant was awarded on August 1, 2022 and will support project activities through July 31, 2026. The project aims to transform health care for service members and the public through...

This National Science Foundation Project Grant award of $468,072 supports research at The Trustees of the Stevens Institute of Technology to develop personalized virtual reality interfaces for motor rehabilitation. The goal is to optimize outcomes for individuals with spinal cord or brain injuries undergoing physical therapy. The researchers will examine how impairment levels affect performance, physiological responses, and perceptions during VR training that adapts task difficulty and augmented...

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) awarded a $295,907 Project Grant (CFDA 93.865 - Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research) to Liberating Technologies Inc. (LTI) to develop a prototype "Unintrusive Pediatric Logging Orthosis Analytic Device (UPLOAD)." The goal is to create a commercially viable, unobtrusive remote monitoring system for pediatric orthotics that can improve compliance tracking. Key features include long battery life, low...