Int. J. Cognitive Performance Support, Vol. x, No. x, xxxx
1
Computer-Assisted Rehabilitation: Towards
Effective Evaluation
Hugo Nicolau*, Tiago Guerreiro and Rita
Pereira
INESC-ID,
Av. Professor Cavaco Silva, IST Tagus Park
2780-990 Porto Salvo, Portugal
E-mail: {hman, tjvg, rpereira}@vimmi.inesc-id.pt
*Corresponding author
Daniel Gonçalves and Joaquim Jorge
INESC-ID,
Rua Alves Redol, 9
1000-029 Lisboa, Portugal
E-mail: {daniel.goncalves, jaj}@inesc-id.pt
Abstract: Recent decades brought technological advances able to
improve the life quality of people with disabilities. However, benefits in
the rehabilitation of motor disabled people are still scarce. Therapeutic
processes are lengthy and demanding to therapists and patients. Our
goal is to assist therapists in rehabilitation procedures providing a
tool for accurate monitoring and evolution analysis enriched with their
own knowledge. We analyzed therapy sessions with tetraplegics to
better understand the rehabilitation process and highlight the major
requirements for a technology-enhanced tool. Results suggest that
virtual movement analysis and comparison increases the awareness of
a patient’s condition and progress during therapy.
Keywords: Physical Rehabilitation; Tetraplegic;
Computer-Assisted Rehabilitation; 3D Visualization.
Therapists;
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Nicolau, H.,
Guerreiro, T., Pereira, R., Gonçalves, D. and Jorge, J.. (xxxx)
’Computer Assisted Rehabilitation’, Int. J. Cognitive Performance
Support, Vol. x, No. x, pp.xxx–xxx.
Biographical notes: Hugo Nicolau and Tiago Guerreiro are pursuing
a PhD degree in Information Systems and Computer Engineering
at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Technical University of Lisbon
(UTL). They hold BSc and MSc degrees from IST, UTL. They are
both researchers at INESC-ID in the Visualization and Intelligent
Multimodal Interfaces Group, headed by Professor Joaquim Jorge.
Rita Pereira is pursuing a MSc degree in Information Systems and
Computer Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Technical
Copyright c 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
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Hugo Nicolau et al.
University of Lisbon (UTL), advised by by Prof. Joaquim Jorge. She
helds a BSc degree from IST, UTL.
Daniel Gonçalves is a researcher at the Visualization and Multimodal
Interfaces group of INESC-ID and an assistant professor at Instituto
Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon. His research interests
include information visualization and human-computer interaction.
Gonçalves has a PhD in personal information management from the
Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon.
Joaquim Jorge is Full Professor of Computer Science at Instituto
Superior Técnico (IST/UTL), the School of Engineering of the
Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal, where he teaches User
Interfaces and Computer Graphics. He received PhD and MSc degrees
in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY,
in 1995 and a BsEE from IST/UTL in 1984.
1 Introduction
Physical therapy is a relevant therapeutic process to patients recovering from a
severe injury. Its main goal is to improve the patient’s life quality, through training
movements and reactions, thus ensuring a greater independence and control of
their body. However, rehabilitation is always a long, arduous and tedious process,
as patients are forced to constantly repeat the same exercises, and the progress is
usually very slow, taking months or even years until changes are visible or felt.
A physiotherapist has the role to observe, interpret and act to optimize the
patient’s response abilities. These therapeutic processes are, once again, lengthy
and require great dedication and motivation from both therapist and patient. Also,
they consist of carrying out repetitive movement patterns across sessions, giving
relevance to a suitable observation, analysis and accompaniment process.
This research aims to develop the tools within the therapist’s reach and
hence improve the overall rehabilitation process. To this end, we studied the
daily routines and analysis procedures at a rehabilitation centre (Figure 1), and
contribute with a set of limitations and requirements for a technological-enhanced
rehabilitation solution for therapists. Our aim is to provide to physical therapists
a computer platform, with efficient and accurate mechanisms, for monitoring their
patients. These mechanisms include: saving all the movements that the patient
performed for further evaluation and visualization, which is likely to improve the
exchange of data between therapists; keep the information for later analysis; have
a precise and objective measure of the patients and their evolution; and be able to
compare movements performed in different sessions.
In this paper, we present the major outcomes from our studies performed
with the main stakeholders in a rehabilitation centre. Further, building on the
requirements retrieved from the aforementioned analysis, we present a virtual
rehabilitation platform and the results from a preliminary evaluation with the
target population (the therapists). Results suggest that a platform that is able to
accurately record three-dimensional representations of the sessions is a valuable
Computer Assisted Rehabilitation
3
contribution to the therapists and improves their awareness about the patients’
status and evolution.
2 A Glimpse on Current Procedures
Every patient is a different challenge for a rehabilitation therapist as they have to
identify the person’s abilities and work on how to improve them. From person to
person, the abilities may vary significantly, and so does their evolution. This is a
process where the therapist plays an irreplaceable role but we believe that can be
supported by external tools. To do so, the first step was to take a snapshot of the
current rehabilitation procedures. With this, we intended to understand the needs
and limitations the therapists face in their day-to-day sessions.
Figure 1
Traditional Rehabilitation
2.1 Procedure
To better understand the rehabilitation process we carried out a ten (10) day study
in a rehabilitation centre with the main stakeholders, i.e. therapists and patients
(Figure 1). While we believe our findings to be valuable for the general population,
we focused our studies in motor impaired patients as the duration of the therapy
may extend for several months and, in most cases, years. This time span and the
slow evolution rate demand a good analysis, storage and follow-up process. These
challenges are likely to expose the insufficiencies of current procedures.
The analysis was performed with 3 physiotherapists and 7 patients. It consisted
on interviews and questionnaires to therapists and patients, and a thorough
observation of therapy sessions and exercises. Along two weeks (10 days), we
worked closely with the stakeholders, recording every session for later analysis
but also by prompting the therapists during the sessions. In the first session,
we performed questionnaires to the therapists and the patients, to characterize
their daily routines, exercise sets and evolution patterns. We performed interviews
after each session, with each therapist, to understand the goals, limitations and
difficulties of each exercise set. In these interviews, we were able to identify,
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Hugo Nicolau et al.
together with the therapists, what they wanted to observe and what they actually
could observe and register.
Summing up all observations and interviews, we were able to create a list of
requirements for patient evaluation and rehabilitation, and a list of the limitations
they face with the current modus operandi. These data was put up to discussion in
a meeting with the three therapists. The outcome was a set of conclusions about
the requirements and limitations of current procedures.
2.2 Results
Every patient attending the rehabilitation centre had an individual treatment plan.
The number of sessions per week and the duration of each session were also widely
variable. The patients in this rehabilitation centre were all individuals with spinal
cord injuries, with severe motor impairments. The lesion severity and degree were
also variable. This had an effect on the diversity of exercises observed during the
evaluation period. However, for the same patient, the exercises were similar in all
sessions.
The therapists had a laptop where they wrote notes after the sessions. These
notes were stored in text files with no particular format. Files were organized
according to date. In some exercises, the saved outcome was limited to a qualitative
analysis while in others the therapists tried to evaluate and extract movement
metrics (movement amplitude, angles). This information was estimated by the
therapists without the aid of any particular tool.
From the observation period, and discussion with the therapists, we highlight
the following conclusions:
• Most exercises are performed physically close to the therapist. During its
execution, the therapist is unable to take notes or even have a full view of
the performed motions or strengths (Figure 1);
• Some exercises are performed locally (e.g., moving an arm) but, to be
performed correctly, depend on a set of restrictions (e.g., maintaining the
trunk steady). Performing the exercises repeatedly in the wrong way may
have a hazardous effect on the patient’s rehabilitation. It is hard for the
therapist to have a complete view when engaged with the exercise;
• Even the movements observed by the therapist are registered with an
approximate value. This value is highly subjective and may vary from a
therapist to another. Further, considering the longevity of the process it
is impossible to guarantee coherence across evaluations thus damaging the
record of the user’s evolution;
• The patients have no visual feedback on their movement or its deviation from
accurate movement. Therapists have to constantly reproduce their movement
and then exemplify how to do it correctly. Even in the presence of a mirror,
one that is likely to be available in rehabilitation facilities, the patients are
only able to observe a fixed point of view.
From the analysis, we consider that a computer platform supported with
an accurate tracking system is a valuable addition to the current rehabilitation
Computer Assisted Rehabilitation
5
procedures. In the proposed system, it is important to highlight both the patients
and the physiotherapists as the target populations. For therapists, this system will
bring benefits such as information sharing, movement pattern and cross-movement
analysis; for patients as it may increase the motivation to achieve the proper
movement, as they can receive feedback on their status. In this paper, we focus
our contribution on the therapists end.
3 Related Work
Rehabilitation is a process which uses available facilities to correct any undesired
motion behaviour in order to reach an expectation (e.g. ideal posture) Sveistrup
(2004). Motor recovery is achieved through task-oriented training and repetition
intensity Malouin et al. (2003). The potential of technology for rehabilitation was
readily apparent, and a great deal of work has emerged (Asato et al. (1993); Kizony
et al. (2006); Rand et al. (2004b); Sisto (2008)), involving therapy and playfulness,
and contributing to interesting technological and rehabilitation advances.
For instance, Rand et al. (2004a) developed the Virtual Mall, a system where
stroke patients could carry out daily activities, such as shopping, allowing them
to gain more independence. Jack et al. (2001) proposed a system for rehabilitating
hand function, using a CyberGlove and Rutgers Master II-ND force feedback glove.
An evaluation with three patients during two weeks showed improvements on most
hand parameters.
Holden (2002) developed a training system based on the principle of learning
by imitation. The authors used pre-recorded movements of a virtual avatar in
order to motivate patients to perform upper limb repetitive training. Evidence
shows that the Vivid GX video capture technology can be used for improvements
in upper extremity function Kizony et al. (2003). Over the years, several
rehabilitation applications have been proposed using this technology (i.e. video
capture) Sveistrup (2003); Bisson et al. (1993); Cunningham (1999): a juggling
task where the participants are required to reach laterally to juggle virtual balls;
a conveyer belt task where participants are required to turn sideways, pick up a
virtual box, and deposit the box on a second conveyer belt; and a snowboard task
where the user is required to lean sideways to avoid objects while boarding down
a hill. One of the main advantages of these applications is its flexibility, allowing
the task difficulty to be easily modified (e.g. number of objects, speed, and size).
Although providing engaging exercises to patients is crucial to guarantee the
success of technological solutions, most applications ignore the therapist’s role
on the rehabilitation process. According to our preliminary results, accurate
assessment, evaluation and comparison of the patients’ motion patterns over
time can improve their motor recovery, since therapists can make more informed
decisions. Similarly to what happens on medical applications, where motion,
posture and gait analysis are used for treatment planning (Davis et al. (1991);
Kejonen et al. (2003); Esquenazi and Mayer (2004)), rehabilitation applications
also need to be aware of patients’ movements. This particular context presents
challenges that justify an accurate and flexible underlying technology: patients
have different capabilities and their rehabilitation schemes are also diverse;
improvements can go from weeks to years and changes can be hardly observed
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Hugo Nicolau et al.
by a human. It is relevant to notice that although some of the presented projects
try to replace professionals, we believe that they are both an essential and
irreplaceable component in physical therapy. Additionally, these systems do not
provide patient-oriented therapy, and may indeed harm subjects if exercises are
not performed correctly. Therefore, rather than substituting physical therapists,
technology should be used as a tool for clinicians and, consequently, to improve
current rehabilitation procedures.
4 Computer Assisted Virtual Rehabilitation
The analysis performed on the current rehabilitation procedures pointed out
several flaws and limitations concerning both the immediate feedback and
afterwards when a thorough analysis or comparison is required. To overcome
the aforementioned issues, we have developed a computer-assisted virtual
rehabilitation platform considering the following requirements:
Data Persistence All data must be persistent and coherent, so they can be
visualized afterwards and shared by physiotherapists;
Motion Capture It should be possible to record the motion performed for
retrospective data analysis and reproduction;
Accuracy The platform should enable accurate and precise recording of a
particular motion, e.g., reach of a patient’s hand;
Movement reproduction It should be possible to reproduce the motion at any
time for analysis and evaluation;
Movement Comparison It should be possible to reproduce two movements in
overlapping form, so they can be compared, e.g., to evaluate evolution;
Automatic Information Extraction It should be possible to enrich the view
and ease the analysis with information, e.g., automatically present the
distance between two points in a particular movement comparison;
Easy Setup The therapists should be able to prepare an exercise with little effort
and requiring no particular technical or computer knowledge
The following sections present how we have tackled these requirements.
4.1 Tracking the Patients’ Movements
To accomplish the goals and ensure that the requirements are fulfilled, our
approach uses a virtual marker-based tracking system, where tracking of the
movement is achieved through light-reflecting markers placed on the human body
(Zhou (2008)) (Figure 2). The choice of such a system, motion capture, is mostly
due to its precision. Moreover, it allows the monitoring of several different points
at once, some of them directly related with each other (two points in the arm
as in Figure 2), but others with indirect relations (trunk and arms). The latter
enable the therapists to analyse posture or any erroneous movement produced. It
Computer Assisted Rehabilitation
Figure 2
7
Virtual marker-based tracking system
is relevant to notice that although we maintain an internal notion of skeleton and
where the markers are placed in the human body, we do not use rigid bodies. In
other words, the markers are isolated points in space, enabling the therapists to
freely select the positions to monitor.
4.2 The Therapists’ Interface
Our platform enables the therapists to manage information about the patients,
their sessions and keep an historical record of their exercises. Further, it enables
them to compare data across sessions or even between patients. In detail, here are
the most relevant features:
4.2.1 Recording a movement/exercise
The platform allows the therapist to record a movement for later visualization
or comparison by choosing which points are relevant to the assessment of the
movement and placing the sensors (markers) on the patient’s body (Figure
4). Then, he/she is able to select them on screen and match with the
desired designation (body part). This is where we create our internal skeleton
representation, consisting in a set of restrictions to help the therapist visualize and
compare the movement.
4.2.2 Reproducing a movement/exercise
Upon recording the movement, therapists can reproduce it, navigate and look in
detail in a three-dimensional view. They are able to analyse in detail the points,
and observe amplitudes and angles between joints. This function behaves like a
media player where one can pause, play or even speed up/down a movement
(Figure 3).
Figure 3
Movement reproduction
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Hugo Nicolau et al.
4.2.3 Comparing movements
At any time, therapists can select more than one movement and compare them. To
ease the comparison, skeletons are overlapped and different timelines are available.
This enables manual control over the different movement reproductions. We are
currently working on automatic synchronization to help therapists in finding a
good comparison starting point.
5 Evaluation
Physical rehabilitation is a long accompaniment process, which requires a great
deal of observation and analysis from therapists. However, they do not possess the
tools to perform these tasks properly. Current procedures are limited regarding
the evaluation of both patients’ capabilities and progress. Therefore, we believe
that a three-dimensional motion tracking-based system is a valuable addition to
current rehabilitation procedures, offering therapists the tools to a more accurate
analysis. In order to test our hypothesis we performed an evaluation with the
target population, which will be described in the next sections.
5.1 Research Questions
This evaluation aims to answer several research questions regarding our approach
and software platform:
1. Is our platform useful for physical therapists?
2. Is the evaluation more accurate?
3. Are therapists able to detect the patients’ progress?
4. Would therapists use the system in their rehabilitation facilities?
5.2 Participants
Since our goal was to develop a computational tool to help physical therapists
in current rehabilitation procedures, subjects were recruited from different
rehabilitation centers. Three therapists agreed to participate in our research.
All subjects were female with ages between 22 and 35 years old. Regarding
expertise, one of the participants is an intern physiotherapist while the other
two have worked for more than 4 years in rehabilitation. In this evaluation
we were particularly interested in analysing the benefits and limitations of our
platform regarding the support that it could offer to therapists when evaluating
several different movements. Because motor impaired patients may not possess the
required capabilities, all movements were simulated by an able-bodied participant,
which gave us more flexibility when choosing the exercises to thoroughly evaluate
our system (Figure 4).
Computer Assisted Rehabilitation
Figure 4
9
Patient (actor) during evaluation.
5.3 Apparatus
The evaluation was performed in a laboratorial setting featuring a motion capture
system equipped with ten infra-red cameras from OptiTrack1 that was able
to track up to 12 markers placed on the patient’s body. Our virtual reality
rehabilitation platform was developed in C++ using Open5 Framework2 . The
evaluation was video recorded by 2 cameras and all interactions with the software
were logged for later analysis.
5.4 Procedure
At the beginning of the evaluation participants were told that the overall purpose
of the study was to identify the benefits and limitations of our computer
platform when compared to current rehabilitation procedures. We then conducted
a questionnaire in order to collect information about each participant. Subjects
were then informed about the evaluation procedure. We performed 3 sessions (3
days with a day between each) with all participants in a controlled and quiet
environment. In each session participants had to observe the movements and
answer an evaluation questionnaire. The observation had two conditions: with or
without our platform. In each session one of the participants used our platform
while the remaining observed the movements without any aid. The latter were free
to walk around the patient. At the end of the session, therapists were encouraged
to discuss their evaluations in order to highlight the differences between the two
conditions (i.e. with and without our platform). On the second and third sessions
participants also had to compare the patient’s performance with the last session,
indicating whether the performance was worse, better or equal. In all discussions
video recordings were used as a disambiguation tool. The participant that used
our platform also had an additional task, which was evaluated as well: placing the
markers on the patient’s body and configuring the motion tracking system. The
configuration consisted of assigning all markers to a point in the virtual skeleton.
This process was previously explained to all participants and demonstrated by
the evaluation monitor. The movements performed by our patient were chosen
based on current rehabilitation practices (Figure 5): shoulder elevation on the
horizontal plane with the palm facing down; shoulder elevation on the horizontal
plane with the palm facing up; and hyper-extension of the shoulder with the palm
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Hugo Nicolau et al.
Figure 5
Movements (from left to right): shoulder elevation with the palm facing
down; shoulder elevation with the palm facing up; hyper-extension of the
shoulder.
facing up; We selected movements in a random order to avoid bias associated
with experience. After observing each movement, the participants had to fill the
evaluation questionnaire composed by questions that are usually answered in the
end of a rehabilitation session: 1) Did the patient keep the back straight during
the movement?; 2) What is the movement’s angle?; 3) Did the patient move his
head during the exercise?; 4) Did the patient move his pelvis during the exercise?;
5) Was the movement uniform?; 6) Was the movement smooth?
5.5 Results
Due to the limited number of participants, our goal is not to statistically analyse
the data, but rather try to understand the potentialities and limitations of our
platform and how it could be incorporated in current rehabilitation procedures. In
the following sections, we present the key results and insights of this experiment.
5.5.1 Setup
At the beginning of each movement we asked the participant who was using our
platform to configure it, i.e. to place the markers on the patient’s body and
configure the motion tracking system. With this task we wanted to assess the time
required to configure our platform so it could be used in current rehabilitation
sessions. Although it only needs to be configured once per session, by forcing
participants to repeat this process every time a new movement was performed,
it enabled us to evaluate learning effects. Figure 6 shows the time taken by
Figure 6
Mean setup times per participant
each therapist to place the markers on the patient’s body and configure the
Computer Assisted Rehabilitation
11
tracking system. The former has shown to be very simple and easy to perform as
participants knew the exact point that they wanted to observe and where each
marker should be placed. After one attempt all physical therapists were able to
perform this task in less than a minute. The configuration process was more time
consuming, however, efficiency still increased with experience. The complete setup
process requires about 5 minutes, which is relatively insignificant when considering
the duration of a physiotherapy session (more than one hour). We believe that the
benefits clearly compensate the time spent in this phase.
5.5.2 Accuracy
For each movement participants had to answer an evaluation questionnaire. These
answers were then confirmed through video analysis, where all therapists were
able to discuss and reach an agreement. Overall, participants who did not use our
platform were more erroneous. For five times they could not answer correctly to
questions one (”Did the patient keep the back straight during the movement? ”),
three (”Did the patient move his head during the exercise? ”) or four (”Did the
patient move his pelvis during the exercise? ”). Even after analysing the videos,
participants have had difficulties evaluating the patient’s movements. As video
cameras were in fixed positions, it was sometimes difficult to properly observe the
desired body part. On the other hand, participants using our platform were always
able to correctly evaluate all movements. Since our visualization platform presents
a 3D scene, participants could easily adjust their view to the most convenient
position during the patient’s movement. Moreover, they could retrieve crucial
information in real time, such as the angle between two segments of the skeleton
or the distance between two points, thus allowing a more detailed and accurate
analysis of the exercise (e.g. if the patient maintained his posture).
5.5.3 Coherence
Evaluating the patients’ progress, particularly when differences are only visible in
the long run, is a hard task for physical therapists. Moreover, patients can be
sometimes accompanied, and thus evaluated, by several clinicians, which means
that this analysis is even more difficult as evaluations are very subjective and
inaccurate. Therefore, we also wanted to analyse how our platform performed
when the patient’s progress has to be evaluated by two different therapists. In
our evaluation, as in traditional rehabilitation procedures, physical therapists only
shared their evaluation questionnaires of previous sessions. Then participants had
to judge if the movement was better, worse or equal for each of the five evaluation
questions. Participants that did not used our platform, once again, were less
accurate, and unable to correctly judge the patient’s progress on five circumstances
(i.e. questions). Main difficulties arose in analysing the movements’ angle and the
patient’s posture. On the other hand, our rehabilitation platform was able to
support an accurate evaluation, since participants correctly evaluated the patient’s
progress. Through our movement comparison feature (Figure 7), therapists were
able to observe how the patient performed on both sessions using objective and
exact measures, thus allowing them to easily highlight the main differences.
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Figure 7
Hugo Nicolau et al.
Movement comparison
5.5.4 Participants’ Opinions
At the end of this study we gathered the participants’ opinions (using a 5-point
Likert scale) about our computer platform. As shown in Figure 8, participants were
satisfied with the platform’s accuracy. Also, they stated that placing the markers
on the patient’s body can be performed easily and quickly. Considering the time
required configuring the tracking system opinions were less conclusive. Overall,
participants stated that this computer platform would be a valuable addition to
the current rehabilitation procedures and were willing to use it.
Figure 8
Participants’ opinions
6 Discussion
We are now able to answer the research questions posed at the beginning of the
evaluation.
Is our platform useful for physical therapists? Our platform has shown to
be a valuable resource to physical therapists. Participants are able to
visualize important information and adjust their point of view in real-time
while patients perform their movements and exercises. Moreover, therapists
can choose to reproduce the same movement and conduct a more detailed
analysis. One of the most useful features was the ability to compare different
movements. By overlapping them, our system allows therapists to evaluate
Computer Assisted Rehabilitation
13
the patients’ progress while offering a useful communication platform with
objective and quantitative measures. Therefore, patients can be accompanied
by different therapists without any loss of quality in their evaluation.
Is the evaluation more accurate? When therapists did not use our
rehabilitation platform, they had some difficulties answering the evaluation
questions. Indeed, participants in this condition made more errors and were
less precise. Our system allowed therapists to perform a more accurate and
detailed evaluation of patient’s movements.
Are therapists able to detect the patients’ progress? Since our platform
recorded all patient movements it was easy for the therapists to detect
progresses by comparing the same movement on two different sessions.
Overlapping the recorded movements allowed the participants to compare
them and identify the main differences. Although the patient was not motor
impaired, the tracking system is accurate enough to allow physical therapists
to identify other movement variations.
Would therapists use the system on their rehabilitation facilities?
Regarding participants’ opinions and comments, they considered this
rehabilitation platform as a valuable and accurate tool to support physical
therapy. Moreover, all participants stated that they would use such a tool in
their current rehabilitation procedures, which demonstrates its full potential
and usefulness.
7 Conclusions
A task analysis on the rehabilitation procedure and on how therapists observe
and evaluate status and evolution of their patients has been presented. The
current process is limited concerning the accurate evaluation of the patients’
capabilities and evolution patterns. We presented a virtual tracking-based platform
that enables the therapists to have both immediate and recallable detailed
information about the patients’ motions, evolution and overall rehabilitation
history. An evaluation with physical therapists over three sessions suggests that
our rehabilitation platform is an accurate, useful and valuable addition to current
rehabilitation procedures.
7.1 Future Work
Although the results obtained in this work are promising, the next stage of our
research includes the deployment of our technological solution on a rehabilitation
centre. Only then we will be able to perform a long-term evaluation with the main
stakeholders, i.e. patients and therapists, within real rehabilitation sessions, and
accurately describe the system’s limitations and potential. Moreover, we will be
able to compare and analyse the gain of both therapists and patients when using
this solution.
Even though our research focus has been in providing a visualization tool to
assist physical therapists in their work, we also intend to explore the usage of
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Hugo Nicolau et al.
this tool to inform patients about their performance. Our goal is to diagnose
the patients’ motor limitations and provide appropriate feedback regarding the
correctness of their movements. Furthermore, we intend to use this information to
improve their engagement and motor recovery. For instance, through games that
reward accurate motion patterns, thus encouraging patients to perform exercises
correctly.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the users that participated in our studies. This work
was supported by FCT (INESC-ID multiannual funding) through the PIDDAC
Program funds. Hugo Nicolau and Tiago Guerreiro were supported by FCT, grants
SFRH/BD/46748/2008 and SFRH/BD/28110/2006, respectively.
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