Fully portable low-cost motion capture system with real-time feedback for rehabilitation treatment

Abstract

To date, technologically-based rehabilitation methods have been widely used for treating disabilities. The evolution of new technologies utilizing motion capture systems or wearable tracking sensors have further enhanced the standalone self-treatments which benefit both the patients and the physicians. However, current systems have not yet proved to be truly mobile or low-cost, since they do not only need significant processing power to operate or tech-savvy operators, but they also have patients visiting the clinic regularly, more often than expected for a home-based system, in order to receive feedback on their performance. This study presents and proposes a fully portable, low-cost motion capture system that supervises the progress of patients whilst each exercise is being executed; thereby, it provides physicians a more mathematically precise way of evaluating patients’ performance and progress through reports generated by the mobile application. For the purposes of this study, we conducted two separate experiments: one regarding accuracy and another one regarding the efficacy of the system.