OU Health Sciences Center researchers have developed a device to help developmentally delayed infants crawl, and now OU students are helping market the device around the country.

The device, called a self-initiated prone progressive crawler, resembles a high-tech skateboard with sensors to gather data about an infant’s motion when he or she uses the device.

The crawler was initially designed and geared toward babies with cerebral palsy, a disease in which the brain is injured or abnormal during development, affecting motor skills.

“It is not only an intervention device that simultaneously generates performance outcomes, but it also can be used to gather comprehensive information about how infants, both with and without cerebral palsy, learn a movement-related task like crawling,” Thubi Kolobe, lead researcher and physical therapy professor, said in a statement.

Babies with cerebral palsy are usually not able to crawl, which can cause parts of the brain to die because they are not used, Kolobe said. The crawler lets these babies use those parts of the brain and make connections to others.

“Our goal is not for them to walk but to be more functional and autonomous,” Kolobe said.

The device is being developed by OU Health Sciences Center physical therapists and engineers, as well as partners at Virginia Commonwealth University. The National Institutes of Health helped fund 85 percent of the project, according to a press release.

‘HOW WE CAN HELP’

Now, OU student interns for the OU Center for Creation of Economic Wealth are helping Kolobe broaden her idea and allow for national use.

Every semester the center finds projects related to biotechnology, software and social entrepreneurship to create wealth in Oklahoma. It both helps the inventors further develop the technologies and teaches students how to work on real-world problems.

“Every year when looking for projects for a semester, we go to the office of technology and development and just see what they’ve received,” Programs Director Valerie Myers said. “That was one of them and it looked very promising. The technology manager had nothing but great things to say about the inventor … and anyone would jump at the chance to help children.”

Microbiology senior Jay Kumar is the team leader of the five students working on the project, a group with majors ranging from biochemistry to aviation. This team has helped broaden the device’s applications to a host of other developmental diseases.

“One of the many things we do is help with that process — collect opinions, surveys, interviews with physical therapists around the country to figure out exactly how we can best help physical therapists, help developmentally delayed children and see what types of children we can help,” Kumar said.

So far, the team has contacted physical therapist organizations in all 50 states and has had extensive conversations with about two dozen of them, she said. Another half dozen or so are still in the works.

CHALLENGES

The project comes with its fair share of challenges, notably that states have different organizations for physical therapists and sometimes ambiguous data on how many are in the state, but the benefit of getting to do hands-on work to solve problems with experts in the field makes it worth it, Kumar said.

The team’s work has helped speed up the commercialization of the crawler and is helping it become closer to an item on physical therapy store shelves, Myers said.

The team will give a final public presentation Dec. 6 to summarize its accomplishments and make recommendations for further work.

WHAT'S NEXT: Apply to join the team

CCEW is accepting internship applications for the spring 2012 semester.

To apply, submit a cover page, resume, letter of recommendation, transcript and essay on ccew.ou.edu.

Applications are due by noon Friday.