Wearable and Wireless Systems for Gait Analysis and Reflex Quantification

The capacity to quantify the movement features of a person undergoing the rehabilitation process enables therapists and clinicians to proactively optimize the therapy strategy. Wearable and wireless systems, such as the smartphone and portable media device, are equipped with accelerometers and gyroscopes that can readily quantify aspects of human movement pertinent to rehabilitation, such as gait and reflex response. The smartphone and portable media device can measure gait and reflex response through their inertial sensors, and the acquired data can be conveyed by wireless transmission to the Internet as an email attachment. This capability enables the experimental site and post-processing resources to be remotely situated. Three phases of the evolution of quantification techniques for the rehabilitation process are observed, which are characterized as a first, second, and third wave. The first wave pertains to the traditional ordinal scale approach used by expert clinicians. The second wave emphasizes the role of quantification systems that are generally constrained to a clinical setting. The third wave envisions the development of Network Centric Therapy through the application of wearable and wireless systems, such as smartphones and portable media devices, for quantifying movement characteristics, such as gait and reflex response. Network Centric Therapy encompasses a quantum leap in rehabilitation capability through Cloud Computing amalgamated with machine learning with patient and therapy team situated remotely anywhere in the world. A summary of each chapter is further presented.