A Smart Assistance Solution for Remotely Monitoring the Orthopaedic Rehabilitation Process Using Wearable Technology: re.flex System

Marilena IANCULESCU^1*, Bogdan ANDREI², Adriana ALEXANDRU¹
¹ National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics,
8-10 Averescu Avenue, Bucharest, 011455, Romania
marilena.ianculescu@ici.ro (^*Corresponding author), adriana.alexandru@ici.ro
² Cetrokinetic, 18, Mircea Eliade, Bucharest, Romania
dr.andrei.bogdan@centrokinetic.ro

ABSTRACT: Physical therapy helps patients during their rehabilitation programme after orthopaedic post-operative interventions or in case of musculoskeletal injuries. For a full recovery and a minimisation of the risk of complications, the prescribed in-clinical therapy sessions must be supplemented by independent home training. The purpose of this paper is to present the emerging technologies used for monitoring ortophedic movements and to introduce an innovative telerehabilitation-as-aservice solution, called re.flex, which consists of two IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) motion tracking sensors and a mobile application The therapist makes use of standardised digitised physical exercises that are carefully chosen so as to create, by selection, a custom designed training program that will meet the needs of each patient. The feedback provided by the sensors enables the therapist to a) monitor the patients’ compliance with the training program in a transparent manner, b) keep track of the documentation related to the recovery progress through data-collection during in-clinical and in-home exercise-based rehabilitation c) customize the training program. The real-time 3D smartphone animations and the direct visual, audio and haptic feedback from the sensors assist patients in performing the rehabilitation exercises assigned to them. The abovementioned application allows the patients to visualise their injured limb on their smartphone or tablet in an innovative 3D – 360° manner, thereby reducing their fear of making mistakes during the recovery process and offering them constant security. The study evaluates the effects of this kind of approach for a group of 30 participants and the results recorded are in favour of the patients recovering with re.flex.

KEYWORDS: Othopaedic physiotherapy, Telerehabilitation, IMU sensors, Motion tracking sensors, Orthopaedic musculoskeletal assessment platform for post surgery care.

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CITE THIS PAPER AS:
Marilena IANCULESCU, Bogdan ANDREI, Adriana ALEXANDRU, A Smart Assistance Solution for Remotely Monitoring the Orthopaedic Rehabilitation Process Using Wearable Technology: re.flex System, Studies in Informatics and Control, ISSN 1220-1766, vol. 28(3), pp. 317-326, 2019. https://doi.org/10.24846/v28i3y201908