Apps and projects
Stroke rehabilitation apps with Western Health
I am co-designing and developing a pair of connected apps with Western Health:
- an Android tablet app for people undertaking inpatient stroke rehabilitation, and
- a clinician desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux built with Tauri, a Rust-based framework for creating cross-platform applications.
Earlier Western Health research found that patients wanted rehabilitation videos featuring people like themselves and presented in languages they understand. Patients and clinicians then helped shape the apps. Their feedback led to real human imagery, clearer interaction cues, a vertical ordered layout, plain language, flexible video use and support for cognitive and language diversity. Clinicians asked for exercise search and prescribing, reminders, progress information and workflows for independent or carer-assisted activity.
The patient app stores videos on the tablet so activities remain available when hospital Wi-Fi is unreliable. The clinician app supports patient setup, local tablet synchronisation and research data export. The next research phase will examine feasibility, acceptability, safety and whether the intervention shows sufficient promise of efficacy.
Watch the patient app demo
Watch the clinician app demo
Or watch the whole presentation here.
VR and AI for speaking practice
As part of an NHMRC Ideas Grant led by Professor Maria Kambanaros, I am helping explore how virtual reality and artificial intelligence can support people with aphasia and other communication difficulties to practise speaking in realistic, repeatable and safe environments.
Based on discussions with Professor Kambanaros, I developed an early prototype of a virtual café where a person can order coffee and practise everyday conversations. I also use it for my own speaking practice, applying techniques from speech therapy. That direct experience helps me assess not only whether the technology works, but whether it feels usable and relevant.
We're currently recruiting participants for the co-design phase of this project, to develop a full town square with a variety of different locations for practice.
My Stroke Foundation Future Leaders Grant also supports research into how people with aphasia use, or could use, AI to meet their own goals. Read the Stroke Foundation story about this work.
Talk For Me reflects both my lived experience of communication changes after stroke and my iOS app development expertise. Designed for people with stroke and other disabilities that affect speech, it provides a fully customisable, easy-to-use grid of items with user-selectable images.
On-device image recognition suggests text for items, which can be organised into categories. Selected items can be turned into an editable sentence, informed by previously spoken sentences, and spoken aloud using text-to-speech.
