Executive Summary: The project consists of developing a Web application for the execution and remote monitoring of rehabilitation exercises in patients who had hip replacement surgery. The objective of the system is to facilitate and increase the speed of the functional and motor recovery process, thanks to the fact that patients can perform therapeutic movements at home and at any time of the day.
Studies on the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs show that recovery time is significantly shorter when the person has the opportunity to practice the exercises more frequently and regularly. Unfortunately, in the current context, the post-operative state of the patients prevents, or at least considerably limits, their transportation between home and the health center; and not all patients have the financial resources to pay for a home physiotherapy service. For this reason, the platform will be developed with low-price technologies, in order to have or give free access to the service. For example, movement capture will be done through a Kinect-type camera, which offers an excellent compromise between recording precision and equipment cost.
The project will be divided into five main stages. The first is the design of the platform's Web architecture. Three different types of user interfaces will be needed: (i) one for the patient to interact with the system and obtain performance data, (ii) another for the physiotherapist to access these data and adapt the exercises accordingly. the evolution of the patient, and (iii) a last one for the treating physician to supervise the post-surgical and functional recovery process. Second, it is essential to develop a module that allows automatic evaluation and validation of rehabilitation activities, in order to provide real-time feedback so that the patient can take into account if he is correctly executing the therapeutic movements. Third, the exercises will be implemented in the form of serious games (serious games) with the purpose of stimulating the motivation of the patients to comply with the reeducation program regularly and until the end. The penultimate stage consists of preparing an ergonomic study on a focus group, in order to evaluate the usability of the tool. Finally, an experimental study based on a randomized controlled trial will be carried out to verify the impact of the self-tele-rehabilitation system on the speed and quality of recovery of patients.
General Objectives: Develop a Web platform for self-tele-rehabilitation and remote monitoring, to improve the recovery process in patients who will undergo hip replacement surgery.
Specific objectives:
- Design the rehabilitation protocol based on re-education exercises, for a quantitative evaluation, and questionnaires, for a qualitative evaluation.
- Develop a computer application based on: (i) modeling of the Web architecture and system database; (ii) development of a module for real-time evaluation of the exercises; (iii) implementation of the exercises based on games; (iv) user interface design.
- Evaluate the tool through: (i) iterative and final evaluations of the usability of the system; (ii) evaluation of the impact of the platform on the recovery process.
Participating Institutions:
UDLA, EPN, UTI.
Participants:
Project manager Yves Philippe Rybarczyk.
- Yves Philippe Rybarczyk
- mario gonzalez
- Danilo Esparza
- Arian Ramon Aldro Gonzalvo
- santiago villarreal
- Sandra Patricia Sanchez Gordon
- Janio Lincon Jadan Guerrero
Awarded budget: $24800
Project status: In progress.
