title: Usability testing of a mobile robotic system for in-home telerehabilitation.
abstract: Mobile robots designed to enhance telepresence in the support of telehealth services are being considered for numerous applications. TELEROBOT is a teleoperated mobile robotic platform equipped with videoconferencingcapabilities and designed to be used in a home environment to. In this study, learnability of the system's teleoperation interface and controls was evaluated with ten rehabilitation professionals during four training sessions in a laboratory environment and in an unknown home environment while performing the execution of a standardized evaluation protocol typically used in home care. Results show that the novice teleoperators' performances on two of the four metrics used (number of command and total time) improved significantly across training sessions (ANOVAS, p<0.05) and that performance in these metrics in the last training session reflected teleoperation abilities seen in the unknown home environment during navigation tasks (r=0,77 and 0,60). With only 4 hours of training, rehabilitation professionals were able learn to teleoperate successfully TELEROBOT. However teleoperation performances remained significantly less efficient then those of an expert. Under the home task condition (navigating the home environment from one point to the other as fast as possible) this translated to completion time between 350 seconds (best performance) and 850 seconds (worse performance). Improvements in other usability aspects of the system will be needed to meet the requirements of in-home telerehabilitation.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Surgery, Université de Sherbrooke, Research Centre on Aging, CSSS-IUGS and the Interdisciplinary Institute for Technological Innovation, Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada. patrick.boissy@usherbrooke.ca
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Boissy
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brière
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Corriveau
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Grant
authors.forename: Michel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lauria
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Michaud
mesh_terms: D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008328:Man-Machine Systems; D008875:Middle Aged; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D049269:Videoconferencing / Q000295:instrumentation*