Unsupervised IMU-based evaluation of at-home exercise programmes: a feasibility study

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Date
2022-02
Authors
Komaris, Dimitrios‑Sokratis
Tarfali, Georgia
O'Flynn, Brendan
Tedesco, Salvatore
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Publisher
Springer
Published Version
10.1186/s13102-022-00417-1
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Abstract
Background: The benefits to be obtained from home-based physical therapy programmes are dependent on the proper execution of physiotherapy exercises during unsupervised treatment. Wearable sensors and appropriate movement-related metrics may be used to determine at-home exercise performance and compliance to a physical therapy program. Methods: A total of thirty healthy volunteers (mean age of 31 years) had their movements captured using wearable inertial measurement units (IMUs), after video recordings of five different exercises with varying levels of complexity were demonstrated to them. Participants were then given wearable sensors to enable a second unsupervised data capture at home. Movement performance between the participants’ recordings was assessed with metrics of movement smoothness, intensity, consistency and control. Results: In general, subjects executed all exercises similarly when recording at home and as compared with their performance in the lab. However, participants executed all movements faster compared to the physiotherapist’s demonstrations, indicating the need of a wearable system with user feedback that will set the pace of movement. Conclusion: In light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the imperative transition towards remote consultation and tele-rehabilitation, this work aims to promote new tools and methods for the assessment of adherence to home-based physical therapy programmes. The studied IMU-derived features have shown adequate sensitivity to evaluate home-based programmes in an unsupervised manner. Cost-effective wearables, such as the one presented in this study, can support therapeutic exercises that ought to be performed with appropriate speed, intensity, smoothness and range of motion.
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Keywords
Performance assessment , Accelerometer , Movement quality , Exercise adherence
Citation
Komaris, D.-S., Tarfali, G., O’Flynn, B. and Tedesco, S. (2022) ‘Unsupervised IMU-based evaluation of at-home exercise programmes: a feasibility study’, BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation. BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation, 14(1). doi: 10.1186/s13102-022-00417-1.
Link to publisher’s version
https://bmcsportsscimedrehabil.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13102-022-00417-1
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/10468/12938
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Tyndall National Institute - Journal Articles
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.