(bright music)
- I'm Melissa Oliver, I'm an Occupational Therapist
and I'm also the program director
for the Assistive Technology program
and the AT design center.
Assistive technology is the use of technology
that can help veterans regain skills or help
to compensate skills they've lost due to an injury,
illness or disability.
So it can be anything from being able to communicate again,
because maybe they've had a stroke
and they can't verbally speak anymore,
there's technology that can speak for them.
It can also be helping someone
who may have a spinal cord injury,
but not be able to drive a power wheelchair
'cause they can't walk anymore or have use of their hands,
so we teach them how to do it maybe with their head
or with their chin.
It could be helping individuals with an orthopedic issue
who can't use their computer anymore or their smart device,
we have technology that can help them do that
more functionally and more independently.
- I'm Brian Burkhardt,
and I'm a Clinical Rehabilitation Engineer.
You kind of think about anything you do in your daily life.
It could be putting on makeup, it could be driving your car,
it could be just walking down the hallway.
Depending upon what type of injury or illness
a veteran might have, those types of goals
and lots of others can become difficult.
There's lots of clinicians
who help with that in many different ways.
Where the Assistive Technology program
and rehabilitation engineers come in
is helping to kind of take the technical burden away
from the veteran and the clinician
to try to meet the veteran's goals.
And oftentimes that involves fabricating things
that don't exist.
And that's where 3D printing comes in
and has made it a lot easier to do those things.
So they came up with this model
which is made out of a splinting material
that they typically use.
And it's essentially a cup holder that's on a swivel
with some different features to hold a straw.
What it allowed them to do was to use drinking pitchers
and drinking straws that are already in the hospital
that are used every day in a different way.
They can hang it on the bed
and it kind of stays with the veteran.
This is what the materials they had on-hand to make it with,
so it wasn't very, it's not very pretty
and it's not gonna last very long
'cause it's fragile.
So through the 3D printing network,
they sent us their models, and we worked with them
over a number of different prototypes and meetings
to come up with something that was a little bit more robust.
And so what you see here
is kind of one of the prototypes holding a pitcher.
It seems like a simple thing, but if you're in bed
and you can't move, and you have to call a nurse
to do anything, being able to take a sip
and get your own water without asking for help
is kind of a big deal.
- Another one that we're really proud of.
We had a female veteran who had a spinal cord injury,
and one of her goals was to be able
to put on her own makeup.
And she didn't have use of her fingers.
She had kind of gross motor movement.
We worked with our rehab engineers
and our occupational therapists to come up with a solution
that could easily work for her.
So, what she would do was be able to slide her hand in here
and then she would, I'm gonna set this down,
put it into her universal cuff
and then be able to put on her makeup.
- What I think is really amazing about VA,
both in medical modeling, in rehabilitation,
and assistive technology, is that all of the things
we're doing for veterans is solely focused
on meeting their needs and solving problems
so that they can meet their goals.
There's no focus on a bottom line or profit.
And I think that's really unique
in healthcare and in the world.
We're able to provide very specific solutions
that just meet people's needs.
Choose VA.
(bright music)