Instruments of Innovation: iDAPT's labs and workshops
At the core of one of the world’s most advanced rehabilitation research centres will be technology – instruments of innovation that equip researchers with the tools and facilities they need to find new, practical and effective solutions to real-world challenges.
iDAPT consists of 14 laboratories and several other research spaces. Approximately 60,000 square feet of renovated and newly constructed space will be dedicated to Toronto Rehab's iDAPT facilities and to rehabilitation research.
iDAPT facilities (MAP) will be housed at the hospital's University Centre and Lyndhurst Centre, and at the University of Toronto's Rehabilitation Sciences Building.
Challenging Environment Assessment Laboratory (CEAL)
The centrepiece of iDAPT, The Challenging Environment Assessment Laboratory (CEAL), will feature a unique hydraulic motion simulator capable of generating conditions such as ice and snow-covered surfaces, uneven terrain and hazardous driving conditions. By recreating these challenges, researchers will be able to develop practical solutions to obstacles encountered every day by older people and by those with disabilities.
Adjacent to the motion simulator platform will be five payload bays, where different testing environments can be set up and calibrated for research purposes. An overhead crane will enable the payloads to be exchanged on the simulator platform with precision and ease.
Payloads will include:
- a chamber where sub-zero temperatures can be maintained and snow and icy surfaces can be created;
- instrumented and adjustable stairways, steps and curbs;
- a mock car to test the effects of hazardous driving conditions; and
- a visual surround and virtual reality system that will allow research to be conducted safely in simulated environments that would otherwise be challenging and possibly hazardous.
- More about CEAL here
Download the Challenging Environment Assessment Laboratory (CEAL) brochure now. > To view this document, you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download the latest version, click here. |
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The Home Environment Laboratory
Imagine a state-of-the-art laboratory capable of testing artificial intelligence and other assistive technologies in a home setting. iDAPT’s Home Environment Laboratory will feature a typical single-storey dwelling to allow researchers to develop new tools to help people overcome the challenges they face in their own homes.
Research conducted in iDAPT's Home Environment Laboratory will focus on easing the burden of care for family caregivers and increasing the independence and safety of people with disabilities who live at home. An overhead catwalk and suspended grid will enable the development and testing of ubiquitous computing approaches and technologies that will pave the way for the provision of health care to be taken out of institutions and into the home.
Smart home technologies will be able to deliver corrective prompting or alert care providers to the problem so that they can intervene before an accident or illness happens. Cutting-edge technologies in computer vision, probabilistic modelling and decision making, machine learning and computational linguistics will be studied and developed in this lab.
Institutional Environment Laboratory
Located beside the Home Environment Lab will be a typical institutional care room with ensuite bathroom. The Institutional Environment Laboratory will enhance investigators' understanding of the physical effort of patient care and to develop better and lower cost technologies to assist with lifting, moving, repositioning, toileting, washing, dressing and other care tasks. The laboratory will be the final testing ground before applying the technologies in actual patient rooms.
Innovations Gallery
This area, which will be located on the hospital's newly renovated ground floor of University Centre upon completion of the hospital's redevelopment project, will combine the functions of display, demonstration and information dissemination. Prototypes and products developed by iDAPT researchers will be showcased here.
Information about research projects and volunteer opportunities will also be available. Trainees and researchers will be on-site at peak times to demonstrate products, talk about their research and answer questions from patients and their families, visitors, consumers and staff.
Other laboratories and workshops:
Rapid Prototyping Workshop
Three-dimensional prototypes of assistive devices will be manufactured with unprecedented speed, function, sophistication, and style in this hi-tech workshop, providing researchers the opportunity to research, develop and test devices with remarkable speed and accuracy. More about this workshop here.
Download the Rapid Prototyping Lab brochure now.> To view this document, you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader. To download the latest version, click here. |
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Biomechanical and Physiological Data Analysis Laboratory
This analysis centre will provide 16 sophisticated workstations for the development of experimental protocols, preparation of the CEAL simulator experiments (e.g. programming for CEAL simulator movement patterns, visual/sound surrounds and any required on-line data processing). Many laboratories in iDAPT will generate high volumes of data that will require the sophisticated data processing capability of the analysis lab.
Team spaces have been designed to be flexible and to encourage graduate students and faculty to work together across disciplines. A total of 66 workstations will be located in renovated space on the top two floors of the main wing of the University Centre site of Toronto Rehab. In addition to these workstations, there will also be capacity for 28 researchers to gather and work together in workgroup rooms that are allocated to each team. A 'hoteling' concept is being used where each researcher and research student has a lockable mobile cart that makes it easier for her or him to relocate to workgroup rooms, laboratories and other facilities. This design encourages flexible teamwork and easier accommodation of visiting scientists.
Cardiopulmonary Laboratory
This lab will be equipped with a treadmill, cycle ergometer, resistance training and pulmonary function equipment, a metabolic cart for monitoring a subject’s heart rate and blood pressure response to exercise, a Holter system for electrocardiographic monitoring and an ambulatory blood pressure and cardiac output monitor that will be used to study exercise treatments for cardiac failure under different climatic conditions. The temperature and humidity in this lab can be changed to replicate the range of indoor and outdoor conditions commonly experienced in Canada in order to develop exercise programs that are safe and practical for our environment.
Electronics Workshop
As almost all of our research will require the design and construction of electronics, the ability to design and produce high quality miniature circuit boards is integral to the success of iDAPT. The Electronics Workshop will provide space for electronics technologists to develop circuits for measurement instruments and for new assistive technology. More about this workshop here.
Falls Laboratory
This lab will house a motion-platform for studying balance control. The platform will allow balance disturbances to be applied in a well-controlled and safe manner while subjects engage in various types of activities or tasks. This lab will accommodate studies that do not need the full capabilities of the CEAL simulator, and will expand the scope of balance experiments that iDAPT can perform.
Communicative Function Laboratory
This lab is located within the Department of Speech and Language Therapy at the University of Toronto. It will be used for the development of new and better assistive devices for people with hearing and speech impairments. For example, the facility will provide the capacity to investigate how acoustic characteristics of noisy environments affect the communication between two or more people. The lab will be equipped with a sophisticated sound-insulated room and fitted with an array of speakers and audio equipment that will enable researchers to accurately reproduce and manipulate the localization and characteristics of environmental noises. The CEAL lab will provide additional environments to test the impact of a variety of challenging stimuli on verbal interactions.
Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Laboratory
In collaboration with the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, Toronto Rehab is leading the way in the development of intelligent, self-adaptive environmental prompting technology. This facility will allow researchers to develop a distributed system that will automatically monitor a complete home environment to protect and support people with cognitive as well as mobility and communication impairments. The Home Environment Laboratory will play host to most of the technology developed in this laboratory.
Instrumental Development Laboratory
This facility will provide engineering students the spaces and the instrumentation (power supplies, signal generator, soldering station, etc.) to breadboard their circuits, program computer chips, and debug and calibrate measurement instruments required for research projects.
Mechanical Workshop
Mechanical workshops will be used to construct the instruments needed for the research and the prototypes of the assistive device inventions. Anticipated products include new multidirectional powered wheelchairs with sophisticated seating and balancing systems, walking aids, fall prevention devices, toilet and bathing aids, communication aids, masks and equipment for more comfortable continuous positive airway pressure systems, and systems for transferring and repositioning patients. More about this workshop here.
Movement Evaluation Laboratory
This facility will be embedded within a clinical area of the hospital and will house specialized equipment to measure complex functions such as mobility/arm/hand control, and the physiologic components that underpin the control of these essential functions. This lab will serve as the essential link between state-of-the-art research and clinical practice, and will greatly enhance research productivity and impact.
Physical Functional Laboratory
The investigation into how individuals engage in everyday activities within natural environments will be advanced in this laboratory with the development of sophisticated portable (wireless and wearable) measurement systems. Non-obtrusive methods for measuring behavioural and physiological parameters of volunteers in research studies will be developed in this lab and transported to other study environments.
Stakeholder Rooms
This facility will enable researchers to obtain the perspectives and opinions of consumers and other stakeholders regarding assistive devices. Researchers will conduct consumer focus groups to understand user needs and expectations of assistive devices. The facility will consist of two interview rooms equipped for video recording and an observation room with one-way windows for observing focus groups. Information gleaned here will be important when making decisions about the practicality, reliability, attractiveness and marketability of various new assistive devices.
Research and Design Studio
It will be essential for each research project to translate specifications into concept prototypes that can be tested and eventually developed into reliable, attractive and cost-effective products that can be manufactured. Researchers and students from engineering, industrial design, clinical, architectural and other backgrounds will collaborate in this open-concept workspace that emphasizes creative computer graphics and concept modelling. The studio will be equipped with sophisticated computer-aided design (CAD) workstations, printers/plotters, exhibit and modelling space and an integrated team meeting space.
Designs for assistive products will be developed in this studio, prototyped in the Rapid Prototyping Workshop and tested on the CEAL platform, in the Home and Institutional Environment Laboratories, as well as in users’ homes and communities. More about this workshop here.
Secure Data Analysis Centre
This is a controlled-access room with six workstations that will store test subjects' health care data crucial for research purposes. Such data are highly sensitive; therefore, assurance of privacy protocols through data security and restricted access is essential. This computer network will be isolated from all other computer networks and will have its own data storage and backup hardware. The secure data centre will ensure that all research is conducted in accordance with applicable privacy laws regarding the collection, storage and use of participants' personal health information.
Sleep Laboratory
Many disabilities have an adverse effect on the ability to get a restful sleep. Toronto Rehab researchers have discovered that sleep disorders significantly increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. A three-bedroom sleep laboratory with polysomnographic, audio and video-monitoring equipment and alertness-testing equipment will be constructed. A portable sleep monitoring system, including portable blood pressure and cardiac output monitoring capabilities, will also be made available to conduct sleep studies in a variety of environments.
Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory
This lab will expand the current research space at Lyndhurst Centre and integrate it with other iDAPT facilities at the University Centre through videoconferencing and shared computing resources. This research lab will allow researchers to study patients with spinal cord injuries during their early recovery phase and later when they return to their communities.
Swallowing/Rehabilitation Research Laboratory
Swallowing difficulties are common in older people and those with disabilities and can pose serious health risks. This lab will be equipped with sophisticated tools to study oral movements during swallowing. This space will also house a Kay Elemetrics Swallowing Signals Lab that simultaneously collects a subject’s muscle activity, airflow and pressure data during swallowing. No similar research laboratory exists in Canada.