Learning to Design Rehabilitation Devices Through the H-CARD Course: Project-Based Learning of Rehabilitation Technology Design

The aging population and the wish to improve quality of life, as well as the economic pressure to work longer, call for intuitive and efficient assistive and rehabilitation technologies. Therefore, we have developed a project based education paradigm in the design of assistive and rehabilitation devices. Using a miniature wireless sensing and feedback platform, the multimodal interactive motor assessment and training environment (MIMATE), students from different engineering backgrounds were able to develop innovative devices implementing rehabilitative games in the short span of a one-term course. We describe here this novel H-CARD course on the human-centered design of assistive and rehabilitative devices.