Multi-sensor arm rehabilitation monitoring device

Abstract

Rehabilitation activities require continuous monitoring process in order to provide information of rehabilitation results to be analyzed by physical therapist. The purpose of monitoring is to help them to improve rehabilitation process. Moreover, a portable and simple home-based rehabilitation device can help patients to improve daily rehabilitation activity. Some previous studies regarding home-based rehabilitation process have shown improvement in promoting human movement recovery. But existing rehabilitation devices are expensive and need to be supervised by physical therapist, which are complicated to be used at home. Some devices (such as exoskeleton-type devices) are also not so efficient to be used at home due to large size and complex system. In this current work combination of sensors (flex sensor, force sensitive sensor and accelerometer) were assessed in order to be implemented as a multi-sensor unit for a portable arm rehabilitation device. Analog signal from the sensors will be conveyed to an Arduino microcontroller for data processing and logging. The results of rehabilitation activity can be used for further monitoring and analysis. An LCD display will show to the user the achievement of their exercise activity.