Method and system for rehabilitating a medical condition across multiple dimensions

Abstract

A rehabilitation plan for an individual with a medical condition is selected in view of physical dimensions and personal environment dimensions of the individual that can impact successful use of an instrument for treating the medical condition. Measurement results obtained from assessments of respective physical dimensions and personal environment dimensions of the individual are used to define respective diagnostics metrics, and also to generate diagnostic and goal scores for the respective metrics. A rehabilitation plan for the individual is selected in view of the diagnostic and goal scores with the intention of increasing an individual's compatibility with the plan and the likelihood of success for rehabilitation. The selection of a rehabilitation plan can include querying a database including previously prescribed rehabilitation plans indexed by physical and personal environment dimensions characteristics of respective patients that were prescribed the rehabilitation plans.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Nos. 60 / 482,675 filed Jun. 26, 2003 and 60 / 482,159 filed Jun. 24, 2003, assigned to the assignee of this application and incorporated by reference herein. The subject matter of U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, filed Jun. 24, 2004 and entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR USING A DATABASE CONTAINING REHABILITATION PLANS INDEXED ACROSS MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS”, assigned to the assignee of this application, is related to this application.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002] The present invention relates generally to rehabilitation of an individual having a medical condition and, more particularly, to using quantified representations of personal environment dimensions and physical dimensions characteristics of an individual having a medical condition to select a rehabilitation plan for the individual. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] It is well known that rehabilitation of many me...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016] In a preferred embodiment, an assessment of an individual having hearing loss is performed to obtain measurement information on physical dimensions of hearing loss, such as on volume and pitch, and also on personal environment dimensions that can impact use of a hearing aid device to address the physical aspects of hearing loss. The personal environment dimensions can include, for example, speech intelligibility, real-world needs, critical success factors, localization, appearance and performance trade-offs and quality preferences. The measurement information for each of the respective dimensions is normalized into a diagnostic metric from which diagnostic scores can be generated for use in searching a centralized database that can be remotely accessed using conventional communications techniques. The database includes previously prescribed aural rehabilitation plans indexed by diagnostic scores obtained from the results of assessments of respective physical and personal environment dimensions of the patients to whom the rehabilitatio

Problems solved by technology

In addition, hearing loss can result from repeated exposure to very loud noise, such as music, power tools or jet engines.

Although the unique and personal characteristics of an individual can significantly impact the successful rehabilitation of a medical condition that includes the use of an instrument to treat physical aspects of the condition, the medical community does not typically formally integrate and use the results of an assessment of an individual's unique and personal characteristics, in combination with the results of an assessment of the individual's physical dimensions relating to the medical condition, into the selection of a rehabilitation plan for the medical condition.

Consequently, many individuals currently are dissatisfied with the perceived improvement to their hearing resulting from use of hearing aid devices.

It has been found that, in many circumstances, an individual prescribed a hearing aid is under the impression that use of the hearing aid will result in a level of rehabilitation that will be satisfactory to the individual, but that the individual's personal and unique characteristics that have not been accounted for in the prescription of the hearing aid make it unlikely that the individual will ever achieve such level of rehabilitation.

The individual thus becomes disappointed, oftentimes very quickly following initial use of the hearing aid.

The perceptions of other individuals who could benefit from use of a hearing are now adversely affected based on hearing of another's dissatisfaction, such that others will be less likely to seek medical assistance in connection with their hearing loss.

Studies have found that about twenty percent of hearing aid users return their hearing aids for refunds, while the remainder experience diminished hearing aid performance and, thus, diminished quality of life.

In addition, current techniques for rehabilitating a medical condition, such as a hearing loss, do not include an easily usable and readily accessible means to store systematically in a database individual-specific information concerning personal environment and physical dimensions characteristics and the rehabilitation plans prescribed to the individual.

Further, current medical condition rehabilitation techniques do not provide for ease of access and use of such a rehabilitation database for learning purposes, and also for selecting a rehabilitation plan for an individual with a medical condition based on similarities between the characteristics of the personal environment and physical dimensions of the individual and the characteristics of the personal environment and physical dimensions corresponding to rehabilitation plans included in the database.

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