Wearable sensors and telerehabilitation

The article summarizes ongoing research on both mobile interfaces and therapies related to rehabilitation with special focus on emerging possibilities for home therapy programs for two areas of special interest to our group: stroke and cardiac. Both are areas where considerable scientific evidence suggesting the need for new therapeutic strategies has not significantly impacted clinical practice, and where home-based programs may be the answer. The article covers two aspects of the design of the mobile intelligent telerehabilitation assistant (ITA), a long-term project intended to provide an alternative for 21st-century rehabilitative telecare, and describes the interactive, mobile ITA interfaces and telecommunications infrastructure, which was motivated by the need identified by participants at the Home Care Technologies Workshop for user-centered interactive systems. We also discuss an approach for addressing the top recommendation of the Workshop: the critical need for intelligent interpretation and management of healthcare data. With the addition of wearable systems and telehealth tools, embedded intelligence takes added significance. We also address the challenge of extracting expert knowledge.