Usage of Accelerometers in the Medical Field of Application and Their Clinical Integration

We conducted a literature review on the use of accelerometers in medical context, on Pubmed and IEEEXplore. This includes 440 relevant articles. The subsequently identified publications were classified with regard to the medical context (prevention, diagnostics, therapy) as well as according to medical-informatics field of application, e.g. activity-tracking, fall prevention/detection and gait analysis. Furthermore, we analyzed their clinical integration or potential for the clinical usage, including both the technical integration into the clinical structures and respective claims and requirements, e.g. privacy or hygiene. This analysis shows five categories ("without indication" to "concrete implementation"). In 90% no statement was made on clinical integration. Only two articles could be found with concrete implementations, but these descriptions are limited to a more conceptual technical side. This poor situation in final clinical integration has to change in the future, because only by the premise "from workbench to bedside" the medical benefit is given.