An interactive cardiac tele rehabilitation program using a mobile device

Abstract

Patients recovering from a cardiac surgery need to undergo regular checkups and physical rehabilitation exercises at their local rehabilitation centers. It is time-consuming and not personalized for each individual. Moreover, the stigma and emotional stress of re-visiting the rehabilitation center for some patients may prove to be more debilitating. With increasing pervasiveness of powerful mobile devices like pocket PC and Smartphone, this paper proposes a personalized mobile rehabilitation coaching program for mobile devices. It allows patients to perform their own cardiac fitness exercises and tests and forward their results to their physicians for assessment. Personalization in the rehabilitation exercises and test programs is achieved by the physicians by allowing direct communication with the patients and adjustments in the parameters via the testing program. A preliminary study has been conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of utilizing this personalized mobile rehabilitation program.