State grant gives boost to collaborative effort

A team of local engineers, doctors, industrial designers and technology professionals is working to develop toys designed to provide physical therapy when played with by children with neurological conditions.

Toys and Technologies for Rehabilitation, a collaboration of Hasbro, Brown University, the Rhode Island School of Design and Rhode Island Hospital, plans to develop two or three toys within the year for use by children with limited movement of their arms, hands, legs and feet, typically as a result of a stroke, car accident or congenital condition.

The collaboration includes Joseph Crisco, director of the Orthopedic Bioengineering Laboratory at Brown Medical School/Rhode Island Hospital; Karen Kerman, director of pediatric rehabilitation services at Hasbro Children's Hospital; Khipra Nichols, a RISD industrial design professor; and teams at Bay Computer Associates and Afferent, computer software and medical device companies in Cranston and Providence, respectively.

Last spring, Brown and RISD engineering and industrial design students who took a combined class taught by Crisco and Nichols built eight prototype toys that were tested by children with neurological disorders at Hasbro and the Meeting Street school in Providence.

The toys, such as a hand-held electronic controller for a computer game or radio-operated car that a child operates with gross motor movements rather than just her thumbs, elicit specific stretching and flexing motions therapeutic to the child, Crisco said.

Afferent and Bay Computer Associates are developing technology that will be embedded in the toys, enabling therapists and researchers to track the child's amount of play and record the benefits, he said.

"The idea was that if we could design a toy that would be loaded with physical therapy and they could bring it home. Then they would be getting a lot more physical therapy," Crisco said. "In addition, if the toy could actually record the amount of activity that it was being played with, that could be used as a measure of their progress."

Last month, Toys and Technology for Rehabilitation was one of 15 research projects across the state awarded a grant from the R.I. Science and Technology Advisory Council, as part of STAC's mission to promote cross-disciplinary collaboration and public-private partnerships that will grow the state's economy.

Toys and Technology will use the money – almost $200,000 – to begin developing the toys into marketable products, Crisco said. In the next few weeks, the team will pick two or three of the prototypes tested at Hasbro and Meeting Street and bring them into a clinical research setting to compile hard data on their therapeutic efficacy, he said.

Eventually, the data will be used to apply for further funding from National Institutes of Health, he said.

The process of developing the products and evaluating their commercial feasibility will take several years, Crisco said. Based on the response of children who tested the prototypes, he believes they're off to a good start.

"They loved them," Crisco said. "The only time they were upset was when the batteries ran out."