Physical therapy helps patients during their rehabilitation programme after orthopaedic post-operative interventions or in case of musculoskeletal injuries. For a full recovery and a minimisation of the risk of complications, the prescribed in-clinical therapy sessions must be supplemented by independent home training. The purpose of this paper is to present the emerging technologies used for monitoring ortophedic movements and to introduce an innovative telerehabilitation-as-aservice solution, called re.flex, which consists of two IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) motion tracking sensors and a mobile application The therapist makes use of standardised digitised physical exercises that are carefully chosen so as to create, by selection, a custom designed training program that will meet the needs of each patient. The feedback provided by the sensors enables the therapist to a) monitor the patients' compliance with the training program in a transparent manner, b) keep track of the documentation related to the recovery progress through data-collection during in-clinical and in-home exercise-based rehabilitation c) customize the training program. The real-time 3D smartphone animations and the direct visual, audio and haptic feedback from the sensors assist patients in performing the rehabilitation exercises assigned to them. The abovementioned application allows the patients to visualise their injured limb on their smartphone or tablet in an innovative 3D-360° manner, thereby reducing their fear of making mistakes during the recovery process and offering them constant security. The study evaluates the effects of this kind of approach for a group of 30 participants and the results recorded are in favour of the patients recovering with re.flex.
Nowadays, the proportion in the older ages and the average life expectancy is increasing dramatically throughout the world. The health problems associated with wealthy and aged populations has been an issue of great concern to a broad and expanding number of people. Appropriate healthcare ITC-based technologies and services have to cope with this situation. Some specific challenges related to senior-centred care as well as impediments to acceptance of health-related digital approaches by elderly persons are underlined in this paper. The assistive technologies play a major role in increasing, maintaining, or improving the functional capabilities of seniors as well as in creating the opportunities for ageing in place. This paper aims to illustrate how an ongoing eHealth solution can be further upgraded by integrating some of the latest assistive technologies devices. A brief presentation of some representative devices (such as wearable sensors, mHealth apps and inhome monitoring system) highlights their benefits for the senior healthcare delivery. The current phase of the "Conceptual Model for a Platform of Integrated Services based on Cloud for Home Monitoring of Seniors affected by Dementia (MSI-MDD)" project is put in. A proposed extended architecture of MSI-MDD platform is provided emphasizing the benefits of the integration of the most appropriate assistive technologies for an improved remote senior-centered healthcare service delivery.
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