SCORE Project: PhysioLib
Title: A Library for Verifying Correctness of Physiotherapy Exercises
Sponsors: Liliana Pasquale and Paola Spoletini
Patients affected by a spinal cord injury need rehabilitation to prevent complications, promote recovery, and make the most of remaining functions. The rehabilitation in all the spinal cord injuries is a long-term process requiring regular ongoing exercise. Among the different spinal cord injuries, we focus on paraplegia which is a complete or partial paralysis of the lower half of the body. Incorrect execution of physiotherapy exercises can have disruptive consequences on the control of the core (body minus legs and arms).
Recently, motion-based games have been used to assist patients during the execution of their rehabilitation programs. Motion-based games are fully controlled by the players' movements that are captured through sensors (e.g., gyroscopes, infrared cameras, body scanners) provided by the game system. However, motion sensing input devices available on the market (e.g., Wii, Kinect) are not equipped with suitable software functionalities for controlling the execution of correct movements by patients affected by spinal cord injuries.
The PhysioLib project aims at providing a software library for motion sensing input devices able to recognise correct and wrong movements performed by individuals affected by paraplegia. The teams are required to acquire knowledge related to physiotherapy programs for paraplegic people, with a particular focus on identifying typical correct movements and potentially harmful ones. Developed libraries will be evaluated through the development of a motion based game exercising correct movements suggested by physiotherapy programs and leveraging a motion sensing input device chosen by the team members.
Project Description
The project consists of two activities: Library Development and Game Demonstrator.
Library development
This activity aims to develop a library for monitoring movements performed by individuals affected by paraplegia. This library will interface with one or more motion sensing input device chosen by the team members (e.g., smartphones, wii smartboard, kinect). Monitored data will be used to measure movements properties (e.g., movement size, degree of rotation) from which the library can recognise correct and wrong movements. Since movements are performed by paraplegic people, the library will work under the assumption that the players are seated without any support for the back and possibly using a cushion.
A list of possible movements that the library should cover follows; movements are grouped depending on the body part exercised. Notice that the team members are required to implement the functionalities necessary to measure and send alerts for at least two groups of movements.
Trunk movements:
- Measure the size of lateral movements of the trunk;
- Alert if the size of the lateral movement of the trunk exceeds a given threshold;
- Alert if a lateral movement of the trunk happens too fast;
- Alert if the number of lateral movements of the trunk exceeds a given frequency;
- Measure the size of the forward (backward) motion of the trunk;
- Alert if the size of the forward (backward) motion of the trunk exceeds a given threshold;
- Alert if a forward (backward) motion of the trunk is performed too rapidly;
- Alert if the number of forward (backward) movements of the trunk exceeds a given frequency;
- Measure the degree of rotation of the trunk;
- Alert if the degree of rotation of the trunk exceeds a given threshold;
- Alert if the frequency of trunk's oscillations exceeds a given threshold.
Neck movements:
- Measure the size of lateral movements of the neck;
- Alert if the size of the lateral movement of the neck exceeds a given threshold;
- Alert if a lateral movement of the neck is performed too rapidly;
- Alert if the number of lateral movements of the neck exceeds a given frequency;
- Measure the size of the forward (backward) motion of the neck;
- Alert if the size of the forward (backward) motion of the neck exceeds a given threshold;
- Alert if a forward (backward) motion of the neck happens too rapidly;
- Alert if the number of forward (backward) movements of the neck exceeds a given frequency;
- Measure the degree of rotation of the neck;
- Alert if the degree of rotation of the neck exceeds a given threshold;
- Alert if the frequency of the neck's oscillations exceeds a given threshold.
Legs movements:
- Alert if the legs move involuntarily as a consequence of the trunk's movement;
- Alert if the frequency of the legs' involuntary movements exceeds a given threshold;
- Measure the degree of arm abduction.
Arms movements:
- Alert if the degree of the arm abduction exceeds a given threshold;
- Measure the degree of each arm forward flexion;
- Alert if the degree of the arm forward flexion exceeds a given threshold.
Elbow movements:
- Measure the degree with respect to the trunk of the elbow flexion;
- Measure the degree with respect to the trunk of the elbow extension.
A visual explanation of the movements listed above can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdScqySvcxc.
Game demonstrator
The library has to be evaluated through the development of a motion-based game exercising correct movements as indicated above and assigning penalisations if wrong movements are performed. Examples of possible games are water craft or shooting gallery games; however team members are encouraged to design their own game demonstrator. We suggest the team members to focus on the library development and not to invest much time in the graphical interface of the game, which can be basic. Team members can also add further movements that could be necessary for the purposes of the game demonstrator selected.
Project Scope
The groups are free to use any (combination of) sensing device they prefer and this choice must be motivated with respect to the movements the team decides to monitor. Teams are free to choose the programming language of the library and the game demonstrator are expected to be or become familiar with the main guidelines for interfacing the chosen sensors.
Process Requirements
Teams are free to choose the development process; however, this choice should be motivated and discussed in the project report. The teams also have to show all the development phase outcomes and artefacts. The project artefacts should be hosted on a public repository of their choice (e.g., SVN, GitHub or Bitbucket), to track the project activities.
Environmental Constraints
Teams are required to record a video documenting the usage of the game developed.
Level of Sponsor Involvement
The sponsors of this project will accept questions without any restriction, although we encourage the team members to be independent and to limit the contact with the sponsors. Selected questions deemed important by the sponsor will be gathered and answered in a FAQ at the bottom of this page.
Sponsor contact: liliana.pasquale@gmail.com, paola.spoletini@gmail.com
Project FAQ
Answers to selected questions will appear here.