Service Learning Project to Engage Students in Biomedical EngineeringJonathan Rey1, Oscar Ledezma1, Erik Orellena1, John Racela1, Ammal Nabilsi1, Chris

Flores1, Matteo Bertucco2, Terence Sanger2, Giselle Ragusa2, and Deborah Won1

1College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology, California State University, Los Angeles2Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Southern California

Background

Survey Results

References

Objective and Approach

The Cerebral Palsy Pediatric Assessment Tool Project

Cerebral Palsy:

Cerebral Palsy is a general diagnosis for physical and/or mental impairments usually caused by damaged motor centers in a developing brain. This disorder appears in infancy or early childhood and permanently affects body movement and muscle coordination but does not worsen over time. Doctors generally send patients with Cerebral Palsy and other disabilities that inhibit fine motor control in the hands to occupational therapists for fine motor control assessments. It could be an additional service for the patient if the doctor himself was able to perform such an assessment before the patient sees a therapist. The question we are trying to answer is: Can there be a game clinicians can use that child patients can play with and be assessed for fine motor skills at the same time?

Current Assessment Methods:

Occupation therapists will generally do a fine motor skill assessment by having the patient perform a series of physical tests where each test corresponds to an age level of ability. The test starts with the most basic fine motor motions and progresses in difficulty until the patient is unable to complete a test.

Proposed Assessment:

The goal is to be able to replicate the list of tests performed during a fine motor skill assessment and make the process more interactive and engaging for children. The game will consist of a kid-friendly, character-narrated videogame that will work in conjunction with a pair of gloves and other interactive objects, all customized with built-in sensors that will Figure 1. Glove Prototype

interpret and assess the actions of the patient during each test. A prototype of the glove can be seen in figure 1. The game will record the data received from the sensors and give the clinician a final assessment of age corresponding to ability based on overall performance. Figure 2 shows are proposed design.

A. Information interpreted by patient exerts certain amount of force to be read by physical sensor.

B. Physical sensor transduces pressure force into an electrical analog signal.

C. A/D converter transduces electrical analog signal into electrical digital signal.

D.Digital signal is carried over from microcontroller to PC via USB connection.

E. Information received from digital signal is read on LabVIEW to be displayed on PC

monitor.

F. Information displayed on PC monitor is interpreted by patient to determine if patient

needs to continue exerting force on sensor.

Figure 2. Proposed Design

In order to measure the patient’s capability we designed a LabVIEW program that demonstrates the amount of force being applied on each finger, ranging from 0 to 4.6 volts. This program is a rough prototype of what later will become the actual game. Eventually we will have a LabVIEW program for each task used in assessing cerebral palsy. This program test for two simple tasks:

1. Can the patient put each finger on the table at the same time?

2. Can the patient push or pick up and object?

If the patient is able to preform each individual task then the LED will turn off, which means the patient passed. As an added bonus we visually

show the change in voltage for each individual force sensor as a continuous graph and a voltage gauge. Both the LabVIEW panel and block diagram can be seen in figure 3.

Figure 3. LabVIEW Program and Block Diagram

Future Steps:Continue on adding more tests to LabVIEWCollect data received from LabVIEW and start data processing procedureProgram a user interface that is child-friendly and encourages patient to participate Design game with a purpose and a protagonist in which patients can relate toIntegrate more sensors on gloves to collect more accurate dataCreate more games that require to evaluate the patients with precision Add components to gloves that can be removed or added on for certain testMake improvements to the gloves (design, comfort, look)Create a Graph or Point Chart that indicates level of degree each patient is currently onStart testing the gloves on patients

California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) is a Minority Serving Institution and its College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology is comprised of approximately 60% first-generation students. There are no degrees offered in the field of biomedical engineering (BME) at Cal State LA. Despite BME course offerings created in the relatively recent years for CSULA students, the field has not gained a lot of traction amongst students thus far. Service learning is hypothesized to increase student motivation to pursue a career in BME. A BMES chapter was established at CSULA in 2010 but participation picked up with the new project described here. We investigated the impact that service learning is having through this initial effort to establish service learning opportunities in the field of BME.

• Service learning is gaining attention as a pedagogical strategy to engage students in learning across many disciplines

• However, service learning in BME is lacking in the literature [1-9]. • Even service learning courses which engage the medical community

have tended to be in nursing, sometimes physical education and sociology [7, 10-14]

• A survey of the literature seems to imply that service learning is most natural in fields more traditionally perceived to be service-oriented (e.g. nursing and social work) or in general education (GE) courses [2, 6, 10-12, 15, 16].

Research Questions:•How can service learning can be used to increase student involvement in biomedical engineering, in particular at an institution which offers no BME degrees?•How does service learning impact student perception of engineering and self-efficacy in engineering?Methods•BMES at CSULA organized a design contest •Objective of contest was to design a game for pediatric cerebral palsy (CP) patients so that pediatricians can assess fine motor skills in simple but engaging tasks which the patient is motivated to perform. •Winner of contest was given resources to work with a team of BMES@CSULA members to implement this game, which could then replace some of the tedious assessments typically conducted by physical therapists which CP patients have difficulty attending to. •Students who worked as part of this team took a survey before beginning the project and after.

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Conclusions

AcknowledgementsResearch was funded through the CSULA Instructionally Related Activities (IRA) Grant.

 Most beneficial aspects freqGaining practical experience with Engineering skills and learning competencies relevant to field of study

5

Contextualization of theory and/or textbook material 3Exposure to Biomedical Engineering 2Discovery-based learning aspect 1

 Most enjoyable aspects freq

Strengthening Engineering skills 2Sense of achievement 2Teamwork 2Diversity of the team 1

Tables 3 and 4 (Above) Aspects of the project which students found to be the most enjoyable and most beneficial to their education, and the frequency of occurrence of the type of open-ended response.

Figure 4. Students’ rating of their own Engineering skills before the project (dots only) and after the project (dot encompassed by arrow) versus number of hours reportedly spent on project. The largest gains in self-perception of Engineering skills occurred in students who spent a large amount of time on the project but there seems to be an optimal range.

Table 1. Average ratings

How much did you enjoy working on this project? 4.2 out of 5How beneficial did you find your participation in this project to be on your education? 4.8 out of 5

Table 2. Changes in self-efficacy With respect to engineering design 83%With respect to teamwork 18%

Figure 5. Which aspects of the project did students find most important (and would be the largest incentive to participate in another similar service learning project).

• Students found the service learning project overall very beneficial and moderately to very enjoyable. • Only two students responded to the question of “What was least enjoyable?” Both responses indicated that the least

enjoyable aspect was the time that the project took from their coursework.• Open-ended responses revealed that students found several aspects beneficial but none that were not beneficial.• No significant changes were found in the degree major / career path. Most students already wanted to develop a career in

Biomedical Engineering already, but the project appeared to reinforce their motive to pursue BME.