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RehabFAB: design investigation and needs assessment of displacement-orientated fabric wearable sensors for rehabilitation

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Abstract

Patients with motor impairments (e.g., stroke, bone fracture, Parkinson’s) are sensitive to the wearing experience of rehabilitation devices, and they often have difficulty accurately positioning them at an accurate position. While solutions involving optical systems or IMUs could potentially help alleviate the issue, they often introduce other challenges such as privacy concerns or discomforting experiences. With the emergence of wearable soft sensors during the last few decades, researchers widely apply soft sensors in rehabilitation to improve the wearing experience. However, these approaches have primarily focused on analyzing the sensor readings to improve accuracy rather than addressing the needs of patients and healthcare providers, and there is a lack of comprehensive design investigation and need assessment based on soft sensor-based rehabilitation systems for motor-impaired patients and their doctors. In this study, we developed an application, RehabFAB, utilizing fabric sensors for rehabilitation purposes. Besides, we evaluated our application and device and investigated the needs of patients and doctors for potential home rehabilitation applications. The investigation was conducted through thematic analysis, correlation analysis and System Usability Scale. The experimental results validated the efficacy, reliability and usability of our approach, with a SUS score of 81.75. In addition, the RehabFAB meets the expectations of motor-impaired patients and medical professionals as a home rehabilitation tool. Our core contributions lie in a thorough evaluation of the needs of motor-impaired patients in order to design a stable and reliable motion-tracking device based on soft sensors for their recovery.

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Data Availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Notes

  1. https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=644248735672

  2. Elbow arthrolysis is a surgical procedure to treat conditions that are causing significant stiffness and reduced range of motion in the elbow joint [51].

  3. MMT is a method carried out by examiners without any equipment to evaluate patients’ muscle strength.

  4. A spasm is a sudden involuntary contraction of a muscle [62], a group of muscles, or a hollow organ such as the bladder [63].

  5. Tertiary-level rehabilitation represents a stage (>4-6 months) after the occurrence of diseases when patients can move independently and have the ability rehabilitating at home [42].

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (62072383, 61702433, 62077039, 61962021), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (20720210044, 20720190006), Research and Development Program of Jiangxi Province (20223BBE51039, 20232BBE50020),Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of Jiangxi Province (20232ACB212007) and Leading Project of Fujian Provincial Science and Technology Department (project name: Application of Flexible Sensor Based Motion Capture Clothing in Stroke Rehabilitation; grant number: 2022D022).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Informatics, Xiamen University, No. 422, Siming South Road, Xiamen, 361005, Fujian, China

    Xiaowei Chen, Xiao Jiang, Shihui Guo, Juncong Lin & Minghong Liao

  2. Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Xiamen Haicang Hospital, No. 89 Haiyu Road, Xiamen, 361026, Fujian, China

    Hongli Fan

  3. Department of Neurology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Xiamen Medical College, No.566 Shengguang Road, Xiamen, 361021, Fujian, China

    Yiwen Zhang

  4. Virtual Reality & Interactive Technology Institute, East China Jiao Tong University, No.808 Shuanggang Road, Nanchang, 330013, Jiangxi, China

    Guoliang Luo

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Appendix A: summary tables

Appendix A: summary tables

Table 7 Findings from patient interview
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Table 8 Findings from doctor interview
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Table 9 The detailed profiles of patients
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Chen, X., Jiang, X., Guo, S. et al. RehabFAB: design investigation and needs assessment of displacement-orientated fabric wearable sensors for rehabilitation. Multimed Tools Appl 83, 57579–57612 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-023-17726-3

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