BackgroundHealth care environments are continuously improving conditions, especially regarding the use of current technology. In the field of rehabilitation, the use of video games and related technology has helped to develop new rehabilitation procedures. Patients are able to work on their disabilities through new processes that are more motivating and entertaining. However, these patients are required to leave their home environment to complete their rehabilitation programs.ObjectiveThe focus of our research interests is on finding a solution to eliminate the need for patients to interrupt their daily routines to attend rehabilitation therapy. We have developed an innovative system that allows patients with a balance disorder to perform a specific rehabilitation exercise at home. Additionally, the system features an assistive tool to complement the work of physiotherapists. Medical staff are thus provided with a system that avoids the need for them to be present during the exercise in specific cases in which patients are under suitable supervision.MethodsA movement-based interaction device was used to achieve a reliable system for monitoring rehabilitation exercises performed at home. The system accurately utilizes parameters previously defined by the specialist for correct performance of the exercise. Accordingly, the system gives instructions and corrects the patient’s actions. The data generated during the session are collected for assessment by the specialist to adapt the difficulty of the exercise to the patient’s progress.ResultsThe evaluation of the system was conducted by two experts in balance disorder rehabilitation. They were required to verify the effectiveness of the system, and they also facilitated the simulation of real patient behavior. They used the system freely for a period of time and provided interesting and optimistic feedback. First, they evaluated the system as a tool for real-life rehabilitation therapy. Second, their interaction with the system allowed us to obtain important feedback needed to improve the system.ConclusionsThe system improves the rehabilitation conditions of people with balance disorder. The main contribution comes from the fact that it allows patients to carry out the rehabilitation process at home under the supervision of physiotherapists. As a result, patients avoid having to attend medical centers. Additionally, medical staff have access to an assistant, which means their presence is not required in many exercises that involve constant repetition.

Neuro-rehabilitation process usually implies the patients' need of going to medical centers. This situation makes patients go out of their daily life environment and routine. In this way, authors have developed a system that allows balance disorder patients to perform a specific rehabilitation exercise (to control the balance when walking) at home. Thanks to that, the patients are able to recover from their disability in a more comfortable and appropriate environment always under the physiotherapist supervision. In this sense, the system complements the physiotherapists' work, avoiding in many cases the need of their presence during the repetition of the rehabilitation exercise. To that end, the system is based on movement interaction through Kinect devices and a specific framework which analyzes the patients' movements in order to generate adequate indications and corrections during the rehabilitation process. Medical staff finds the system as an assistant tool with which enables to control the rehabilitation process in the distance if patients' conditions allow.

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A residential care home is a suitable environment to implement a software system providing users the functionality and the information required at any time, whichever place, and circumstance. The advances of technology in the last few years have made the design of the system possible; the system will employ features regarding collaboration, ubiquity, and context-awareness. Firstly, defining the architecture of the system is necessary to guarantee a proper design and implementation. This chapter deals with those subjects. The architectural proposal is described from the hardware and software perspectives. The hardware architecture shows the distribution of the hardware components to be used: mobile devices, servers, communications, etc.; on the other hand, the software architecture shows the distribution of the system components by layers based on the functionality and information processing. Awareness is a key issue to be considered in the design of the proposed system from the point of view of collaboration; therefore, an analysis about how to handle and consider this feature on both architectures is depicted.