An audiovisual patient identification system for rehabilitation

Abstract

Exercising is an essential part of the rehabilitation. Patients that suffer from chronic diseases, such as Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) or fibromyalgia, must be committed to a daily exercise routine that helps them to eventually return to their normal daily activities. However, rehabilitation programs can be expensive and time- consuming. The patient must be in contact with their therapist on a frequent basis and follow a really demanding routine. Therapist must always be able to track each patient's progress and activity and make personalized decisions. This work describes a tele-rehabilitation system which facilitates the initiation and monitoring of rehabilitation exercises. We propose a patient identification system that logs the user in this rehabilitation system, based on audiovisual feature extraction. The context of our system assumes that patients are able to perform their scheduled activities prescribed by the therapist either with their therapist or even alone at home. The therapist can remotely keep track of the progress of each patient. The above scenario requires that our system guarantees safety, accuracy and private data security.