Short synopsis

ReAbility Online is an initiative of Gertner Institute, a large research institute at the Sheba Medical Center, Israel. The institute was founded in 1991 by Prof. Mordechai Shani, 2009 Israel Prize winner. ReAbility Online team includes senior clinical and technology experts who develop rehabilitation systems to provide rehabilitation services for people in their homes.

Our Motion and Speech systems improve patient’s access to chronic rehabilitation care by receiving therapy beyond the physical walls of a traditional healthcare facility, thus expanding continuity and intensity of care to persons with disabling conditions. To date, we have focused on patients who have had a stroke or traumatic brain injury but the system is suited for many diverse conditions.

While early telecare projects provided one-on-one services and support, our systems include a home-based exercise and monitoring platform that empowers patients to self-practice while providing remote guidance via a clinical call center.

What is unique about ReAbility Online?

ReAbility Online provides individually tailored exercises with programmable levels of difficulty, clear auditory feedback, knowledge of results as well as knowledge of performance, while providing the patient with dynamic information on progress. The systems also allow offline exercise for independent use (with sporadic “check-ups” by the clinician). Both online and offline data are stored for subsequent interpretation and recommendations by the clinician.

Our systems have gone through a series of clinical trials to show feasibility and effectiveness, including comparison to traditional rehabilitation exercises. The positive results led directly to approval of the Israeli Ministry of Health and the launch of a tele rehabilitation service with 130 patients to date.

Where is ReAbility Online being used?

Our systems are already deployed at the Sheba Medical Center (in the outpatient rehabilitation department, at the advanced neurological rehabilitation center (“Tzeadim”) and at the Safra Children’s Hospital). We also have systems at Clalit, the largest Israeli HMO’s Rehabilitation Center in Tel Aviv, at the Reut Medical Center (Tel Aviv) and starting June 2014 in Levinstein Rehabilitation Center (Ra’anana), Soroka Medical Center (Be’er Sheva) and the Ichilov Medical Center (Tel Aviv).

Tele-Motion Rehab

The Motion system improves the patient’s motor, cognitive and functional status. We use an off-the-shelf 3D camera system to analyze patient movements to verify accurate functional motions while practicing a variety of functional tasks and games.

Tele-Language Rehab

The Language system is a “cloud” based system enabling patients to engage in computerized self-practice of various language tasks, accompanied by an artificial intelligence agent module that learns from a human clinician how to identify language difficulties and respond in a clinical manner. The artificial intelligence provides unique service scalability that allows a single clinician to handle multiple therapy sessions without sacrificing the quality of care. Patients can engage in computerized self-practice of various language assignments and receive pertinent automated and human feedback.