Researchers at the University of Houston have developed wearable technology to assist Parkinson’s patients to perform rehabilitation exercises in their own home.
Parkinson’s symptoms include resting tremors, muscle rigidity, and postural instability. Parkinson’s patients can fall easily, leading to injuries and difficulty performing everyday tasks. One way to address this issue is to have patients perform exercises to improve their balance. Toward this end, the team at University of Houston has developed motion-tracking technology to assist patients with these exercises.
“It’s important to develop a system that is easy to use and readily available in the home environment,” said Beom-Chan Lee, Assistant Professor at the University of Houston. “Most of the time, patients have to rehab at a clinic but there might be limited access. We’re not trying to replace traditional therapy but there is a shortage of physical therapists.”
The system consists of a wearable belt lined with vibrating actuators. When combined with a smartphone app that tracks movement, the system can complement an in-home rehabilitation program. “The smartphone application records and creates a custom motion for their body tilt, based on their individual limits of stability. The touch guidance from the vibrating actuators is almost acting as if a physical therapist is guiding them,” said Alberto Fung, a graduate student at the University of Houston. The app provides instructions for individually tailored balance exercises while monitoring the patients’ movements in real-time.
The data from the system can be uploaded to a server, and accessed by clinicians to see how much progress the patient is making. The system could also be used by anyone with balance issues unrelated to Parkinson’s, including the elderly. Lee said that Parkinson’s patients who tested the belt at home for 6 weeks experienced “noticeable improvements,” but the data have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
See the researchers present the technology here:
