Wearable motion sensors in measuring the activity of a rehabilitation patient
Mykkänen, Mirka (2021)
Mykkänen, Mirka
2021
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2021060213691
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2021060213691
Tiivistelmä
Rehabilitation is one key part of healthcare services, and one of the most common patient group needing rehabilitation throughout the world and in Finland, are people who have had a stroke. It has been noticed that the patient’s amount of physical activity during recovery and rehabilitation is linked with the outcome. Using technological improvements in healthcare will offer a change in working methods and potentially lower costs in healthcare. The use of new technologies in healthcare will rise in the future, such as the use of sensor technology will increase. It is said that the most promising technology to aid healthcare to provide more cost-effective and efficient care are wearable sensors. Wearable motion sensors to measure activity on rehabilitation patients are a rising opportunity to enhance the rehabilitation services, providing both patients and the rehabilitation professionals a new tool for diversifying rehabilitation. In this thesis, the goal was to find out what kind of wearable motion sensors exists that are suitable for rehabilitation setting. Also, pointing out the needed technology to implement motion sensor systems in rehabilitation and the benefits and challenges of using wearable motion sensing technology in rehabilitation. Smartphones and some sensors that only measure physiological signs, such as heart rate and respiratory rate, were excluded of this thesis.
The research method was chosen to be an integrative literature research, as it offers an opportunity to use research material from a wider spectrum. The integrative literature review progressed by defining the research questions, then searching the relevant literature from databases, choosing the original studies, assessing the quality of literature and analysing it by using a general inductive approach and finally presenting the findings. Databases used in this research were Savonia-FINNA, EBSCHO, Cinahl Complete, PubMed and Google Scholar. Twenty-five (25) research articles were chosen for the literature review.
There were found many types of wearable motion sensors that are suitable for activity monitoring and especially on rehabilitation patients. The types of sensors are accelerometers, pedometers, gyroscopes, Global Positioning System (GPS), magnetometers, Electromagnetic Tracking System (ETS), electromyography (EMG), goniometers, Insole Pressure Sensors (IPS) and smart textiles. Also, the environmental context of motion sensing system is presented amongst the wearables, as it was mentioned multiple times in the original studies. The original studies also provided the information about what technical demands there are to have a working sensor system in rehabilitation use. There were multiple benefits on using wearable motion sensors in activity monitoring with rehabilitation patients, such as them serving as an indicator in assessing the effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions. There were also challenges found, for example the underutilization of e-health interventions in healthcare and the busy clinical environment that will not leave a lot of time for implementing and training to use the new technology. Further research considering this topic could be clinical trials on different wearable motion sensors, and finding out which of them is the most suitable on stroke patient’s activity monitoring during rehabilitation.
The research method was chosen to be an integrative literature research, as it offers an opportunity to use research material from a wider spectrum. The integrative literature review progressed by defining the research questions, then searching the relevant literature from databases, choosing the original studies, assessing the quality of literature and analysing it by using a general inductive approach and finally presenting the findings. Databases used in this research were Savonia-FINNA, EBSCHO, Cinahl Complete, PubMed and Google Scholar. Twenty-five (25) research articles were chosen for the literature review.
There were found many types of wearable motion sensors that are suitable for activity monitoring and especially on rehabilitation patients. The types of sensors are accelerometers, pedometers, gyroscopes, Global Positioning System (GPS), magnetometers, Electromagnetic Tracking System (ETS), electromyography (EMG), goniometers, Insole Pressure Sensors (IPS) and smart textiles. Also, the environmental context of motion sensing system is presented amongst the wearables, as it was mentioned multiple times in the original studies. The original studies also provided the information about what technical demands there are to have a working sensor system in rehabilitation use. There were multiple benefits on using wearable motion sensors in activity monitoring with rehabilitation patients, such as them serving as an indicator in assessing the effectiveness of rehabilitation interventions. There were also challenges found, for example the underutilization of e-health interventions in healthcare and the busy clinical environment that will not leave a lot of time for implementing and training to use the new technology. Further research considering this topic could be clinical trials on different wearable motion sensors, and finding out which of them is the most suitable on stroke patient’s activity monitoring during rehabilitation.