Smart Sensors and Tailored Environments for Neuro-Motor Rehabilitation Monitoring in IoT Era

Abstract

The convergence of healthcare, instrumentation and measurement technologies will transform healthcare as we know it, improving quality of healthcare services, reducing inefficiencies, curbing costs and improving quality of life. Smart sensors, wearable devices, Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, and big data offer new and exciting possibilities for more robust, reliable, flexible and low-cost healthcare systems and patient care strategies. These may provide value-added information and functionalities for patients, particularly for those with neuro-motor impairments. It has great importance in developed countries in the context of population ageing. In this invited talk the focus will be on: hardware and software infrastructure for neuro-motor rehabilitation; highlighting the developed solutions for motor rehabilitation based on virtual reality and serious games. As part of these interactive environments, 3D image sensors for natural user interaction with rehabilitation scenarios and remote sensing of user movement, as well as thermographic camera for remote evaluation of muscle activity will be presented. Additionally technologies for unobtrusive monitoring of patient posture, balance and walking gait monitoring during neuro-motor rehabilitation as so as the developed prototypes such as smart walkers and force platform that provide quantitative information associated with physical rehabilitation process outcome will be presented. 

Challenges related to simple and secure connectivity, signal processing, data storage, data representation, data analysis including the development of specific metrics that can be used to evaluate the progress of the patients during the rehabilitation process will be discussed.