Development of a healthcare knowledge based system for stroke rehabilitation

Abstract

This dissertation reports on the design and assessment of the Stroke Rehabilitation Assistance for care givers. Disability resulting from stroke was chosen because of its complexity and requirement for a multidisciplinary healthcare approach to diagnosis and treatment. Many clinical decisions in stroke assessment follow specific rules and require prerequisite knowledge similar to the rule-based system used in knowledge based system. In this dissertation, the system consists of two parts, the system engine and system interface. Acquire 2.1 was chosen as an engine to program the rules for the various decisions in Stroke Rehabilitation Assistance. Visual Basic 6 (VB 6) was chosen to create the user interface in window environment. The Software Development Kit (SDK) program provided by Acquire 2.1 interfaces the system engine and system interface together. Interviews, questionnaires and site visits in the hospital were conducted with therapists to understand and program the rules in the knowledge based system.