Empowering patients to perform physical therapy at home

In this paper we address the problem of patient adherence to physical therapy using a sensor-enabled virtual reality gaming interface that motivates users to complete their exercises while collecting quantitative data. The system also allows the therapist to monitor and interact with patients remotely providing reinforcing feedback and support with the CollaboRhythm care delivery platform. The data collected with this system enables the therapist and the patient to make informed decisions about patient treatment and exercise regimens based on the patient progress. The system is capable of supporting a wide array of rehabilitation scenarios with remote collaboration. A knee replacement scenario was tested with an experimental protocol involving 16 healthy participants. The results show both quantitatively and qualitatively that patients can learn intuitively to perform their physical therapy exercises on a remote environment without further human intervention.

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