Article

This perspective article will discuss the potential role of body-worn movement
monitors for balance and gait assessment and treatment in rehabilitation. Recent
advances in inexpensive, wireless sensor technology and smart devices are
resulting in an explosion of miniature, portable sensors that can quickly and
accurately quantify body motion. Practical and useful movement monitoring systems
are now becoming available. It is critical that therapists understand the
potential advantages and limitations of such emerging technology. One important
advantage of obtaining objective measures of balance and gait from body-worn
sensors is impairment-level metrics characterizing how and why functional
performance of balance and gait activities are impaired. Therapy can then be
focused on the specific physiological reasons for difficulty in walking or
balancing during specific tasks. A second advantage of using technology to
measure balance and gait behavior is the increased sensitivity of the balance and
gait measures to document mild disability and change with rehabilitation. A third
advantage of measuring movement, such as postural sway and gait characteristics,
with body-worn sensors is the opportunity for immediate biofeedback provided to
patients that can focus attention and enhance performance. In the future,
body-worn sensors may allow therapists to perform telerehabilitation to monitor
compliance with home exercise programs and the quality of their natural mobility
in the community. Therapists need technological systems that are quick to use and
provide actionable information and useful reports for their patients and
referring physicians. Therapists should look for systems that provide measures
that have been validated with respect to gold standard accuracy and to clinically
relevant outcomes such as fall risk and severity of disability.
CI - (c) 2015 American Physical Therapy Association.

Langue : ANGLAIS