Smart Rehabilitation Enters Communities, Opening Up the "Last Mile" of Services
At a community health service center in Chengxiang Town, Chengdu, Sichuan, 46-year-old Mi Ling is undergoing gait training with a lower-limb rehabilitation robot, accompanied by a rehabilitation therapist.
Five years ago, Mi Ling was left with left-side paralysis from a cerebral infarction. Because traveling was inconvenient - a trip to a professional rehab facility took the better part of a day - she could only do simple exercises at home, with limited recovery. Last year, her neighborhood community health service center introduced a batch of smart rehabilitation equipment, including a lower-limb rehabilitation robot and a digital occupational-therapy interactive system, so Mi Ling no longer has to travel far for rehab. Under the guidance of professional therapists, after 10 months of systematic training, Mi Ling can now walk independently with assistive devices.
Mi Ling, a resident living with disability:
"When I did rehabilitation at home, many things couldn't be done properly. Now it's close to home and convenient. The equipment here is quite advanced, and with the therapists' guidance, my walking posture is being corrected in a scientific way."
Beyond introducing smart rehabilitation equipment, the Chengxiang Town community health service center is also staffed with full-time rehabilitation therapists, and qualifying rehabilitation programs can be covered by medical insurance, easing the financial burden on families like Mi Ling's.
Sun Xuemin, parent of a child named Huanhuan:
"With the eye tracker, we can accurately identify the areas where the child's attention is weaker, and the data provided by the eye tracker helps us better arrange the direction of intervention."
Scientific assessment of children with autism is the prerequisite for precise rehabilitation intervention. With AI eye trackers, the assessment time for autism has been compressed from hours to minutes, and even children with low cooperation can complete the test. The assessment reports can effectively help therapists design intervention plans; so far, more than 100 children in Hai'an have received multiple rounds of free testing and evaluation.
Assessment is not the only application - AI technology is being deeply integrated into autism rehabilitation training. In Xianning, Hubei, 8-year-old Xiaoyang comes to a rehabilitation class accompanied by his mother. Here there is a device shaped like a "game console," and its lively, fun animations fill Xiaoyang, who used to resist rehab training, with anticipation. More than 300 engaging interactive games - picking flowers, catching objects and more - each correspond to rehabilitation goals for people with autism.
Chen Liangying, professor at the Faculty of Artificial Intelligence in Education, Central China Normal University:
"The child follows the cue clues of virtual characters to complete the game. Joint-attention training is very important for children with autism - it is the foundation of their learning. The individual differences among children with autism are very large, so it is difficult to solve autism rehabilitation with one fixed method."
This newly self-developed system can capture and record the behavioral data of children with autism in real time, intelligently analyze their shortfalls in attention, cognition, social skills and hands-on abilities, and dynamically push adapted training content according to individual differences, making rehabilitation for children with autism more precise and efficient.
Chen Liangying:
"Currently, autism rehabilitation in China relies heavily on the experience of professionals. Through AI technology - digital humans, immersive classrooms and touchscreen training - learning paths can be dynamically adjusted to meet each child's individualized needs."
Recently, the Central China Normal University team also developed a mobile AI mini-program, which will later be connected to a large-model knowledge graph to provide home rehabilitation guidance based on the daily behavior of children with autism. This achievement now covers 74 autism rehabilitation institutions in Hubei Province and has been implemented in special-education institutions, kindergartens, medical institutions and patients' families across 29 provinces, regions and municipalities nationwide, providing rehabilitation assessment and intervention services for a cumulative 160,000 children.
When Sign Language Meets AI, Technology Builds a Sound Bridge for the Hearing-Impaired
In Guangdong, AI accessibility systems are changing the lives of hearing-impaired people, helping them conduct speech rehabilitation training and integrate into daily life.
In an e-commerce livestream room in Foshan, Guangdong, hearing-impaired entrepreneur Liu Jian is skillfully introducing products to viewers in sign language. Liu Jian's livestream mainly sells goods to the hearing-impaired community. Sign-language livestreaming can bring him closer to hearing-impaired audiences, but it also confines him to a single mode of communication.
Liu Jian, who is hearing-impaired:
"Typing on my phone for others to read - I would rather express my thoughts with my own voice."
Two years ago, Liu Jian's son, nicknamed Little Pomegranate, was born, bringing more laughter to the family and making Liu Jian's desire to speak even more urgent.
Auditory-speech rehabilitation is a "continuous project." Because therapists are scarce and costs are high, many hearing-impaired people are trapped in the dilemma of "wanting rehabilitation but not knowing where to start." With the development of AI, technology is breaking down this silent wall in front of the hearing-impaired. The AI accessibility application system Liu Jian is using generates a dedicated recognition model based on his unique pronunciation habits and articulation characteristics. Even if his pronunciation is blurred or his sentences are fragmented, it can be captured accurately in real time and simultaneously converted into clear speech.
