This technology also has potential to reduce costs to the healthcare system and improve patient outcomes
TORONTO–Telerehabilitation technology developed by a team at the KITE Research Institute at UHN matches the performance of industry leading motion capture devices in testing.
With further development this technology has the potential to increase accessibility to care for people with mobility issues or living in remote areas; reduce costs to the healthcare system; and improve patient outcomes by providing personalized and consistent care.
The results of these tests were published in Biomedical Engineering Online.
The International Conference on Aging, Innovation & Rehabilitation (ICAIR) partnered with BioMedical Engineering OnLine to publish a special edition of the journal featuring full-length papers of the highest scoring abstracts from the conference.
The paper’s first author KITE trainee Ali Barzegar Khanghah discussed his team’s findings below.
Which patient groups are most affected by this? Patients with arthritis or musculoskeletal disorders who are going through physical rehabilitation therapy sessions. What did you find? We evaluated and calibrated our contactless telerehabilitation technology with the gold standard motion capture (Mocap) and found that the proposed system showed a strong correlation with Mocap results, although some deviations were present due to noise. Precision decreased as the distance from the camera increased. Calibration significantly improved performance. Linear regression models consistently outperformed nonlinear models, especially at shorter distances. Why does this matter? Evaluating and calibrating our proposed marker-less telerehabilitation system is paramount as it directly addresses the needs of diverse patient populations. This telerehabilitation system ensures accessibility for individuals with mobility limitations or those residing in remote areas. This empowers patients to receive rehabilitation services conveniently from their homes, promoting inclusivity and enhancing overall healthcare accessibility and equity. What is the potential impact? The potential impact of successfully adopting our telerehabilitation system is significant. Firstly, it could revolutionize rehabilitation accessibility by enabling remote monitoring and assistance, breaking geographical barriers and providing care to underserved communities. Secondly, it has the potential to reduce healthcare costs associated with traditional in-person rehabilitation sessions. Lastly, it could improve patient outcomes through more personalized and consistent rehabilitation interventions. | Research Spotlight: Affiliations: Name of Publication: Name of Journal:
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