Federal Grant Award Summary

The University of Central Oklahoma received $381,392 in Project Grant funding from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering under the Discovery and Applied Research for Technological Innovations to Improve Human Health program (CFDA 93.286), awarded April 14, 2026, with completion targeted for March 31, 2028. The project will develop PRAISE (Pressure Relief Assessment Information System), a mobile health platform designed to enhance adherence to clinical practice guidelines for pressure relief among manual wheelchair users with spinal cord injuries. The platform addresses the critical public health challenge of pressure ulcer prevention by integrating user health profiles, demographic data, wheelchair usage patterns, and real-time sensor data from smartwatches—including accelerometer, heart rate, GPS, and battery life information—to enable ecological momentary assessments and provide personalized intervention strategies.

PRAISE represents a paradigm shift from conventional singular adherence monitoring toward a holistic, multidimensional approach grounded in the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health model. By cohesively integrating a user's health, personal, and environmental factors, the platform aims to identify barriers to adherence and develop targeted interventions that support users in performing recommended pressure relief activities (vertical pushups, lateral leans, and forward leans) every 15 to 30 minutes. This technology-driven research responds to the absence of universally adopted monitoring tools and limited understanding of non-adherence factors, ultimately seeking to reduce the high prevalence of pressure ulcers and associated complications among wheelchair users.