An exercise motivational system for walking rehabilitation using the Smart Walker

Because declining rates of population growth have left aging societies in many countries around the world, Smart Walker systems were created to assist elderly people in managing their physical, cognitive, and emotional challenges. While the main application of the Smart Walker is to assist in the daily life of the elderly, it may also be used to assist in rehabilitation. In this paper, a no-contact system is proposed to motivate exercise on a Smart Walker. A tablet device is attached to the chair in front of the user to serve as a channel for interaction. The tablet device has several modalities for expression including a 3D robot-face character, TTS (Text to Speech), and dialog messaging. The exercise motivational system selects appropriate expressions to display on the tablet device, from pre-recorded behavioral data, using real-time data from the movements of the patient.