Assisted Motion Control in Therapy Environments Using Smart Sensor Technology: Challenges and Opportunities

In the following decades, the European population will be steadily growing older, which causes serious problems, especially with regard to the health sector. Problems are further aggravated by the lack of personnel resources. Even now, the number of therapists is not sufficient to supervise the increasing number of patients during their rehabilitation process. At this point, technical systems can support both patients and therapists in order to ensure the quality of rehabilitation. In this study, we review recent developments in the field of feedback-based therapy systems and identify needs that have not been satisfied thus far. On the basis of these findings, we introduce a technical system for assisted motion control in real therapy applications and discuss possible solutions in order to encounter current deficits. We thereby address aspects, such as sensor technologies, approaches for capturing and matching human motions, the grade of muscular stress, user-specific system parametrization, the way of delivering feedback and user-friendly interfaces for feedback and therapy evaluation. The presented system could contribute to a more efficient therapy, because it can supervise patients when the therapist is not present.