Bonato Paolo
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School and The Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, 125 Nashua Street, Boston MA 02114, USA.
J Neuroeng Rehabil. 2005 Feb 25;2(1):2. doi: 10.1186/1743-0003-2-2.
The development of miniature sensors that can be unobtrusively attached to the body or can be part of clothing items, such as sensing elements embedded in the fabric of garments, have opened countless possibilities of monitoring patients in the field over extended periods of time. This is of particular relevance to the practice of physical medicine and rehabilitation. Wearable technology addresses a major question in the management of patients undergoing rehabilitation, i.e. have clinical interventions a significant impact on the real life of patients? Wearable technology allows clinicians to gather data where it matters the most to answer this question, i.e. the home and community settings. Direct observations concerning the impact of clinical interventions on mobility, level of independence, and quality of life can be performed by means of wearable systems. Researchers have focused on three main areas of work to develop tools of clinical interest: 1)the design and implementation of sensors that are minimally obtrusive and reliably record movement or physiological signals, 2)the development of systems that unobtrusively gather data from multiple wearable sensors and deliver this information to clinicians in the way that is most appropriate for each application, and 3)the design and implementation of algorithms to extract clinically relevant information from data recorded using wearable technology. Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation has devoted a series of articles to this topic with the objective of offering a description of the state of the art in this research field and pointing to emerging applications that are relevant to the clinical practice in physical medicine and rehabilitation.
微型传感器的发展，这些传感器可以不显眼地附着在身体上，或者可以成为衣物的一部分，例如嵌入服装面料中的传感元件，为长时间在现场监测患者开辟了无数可能性。这与物理医学与康复实践尤为相关。可穿戴技术解决了康复患者管理中的一个主要问题，即临床干预对患者的现实生活有重大影响吗？可穿戴技术使临床医生能够在最关键的地方收集数据来回答这个问题，即家庭和社区环境。通过可穿戴系统可以对临床干预对活动能力、独立水平和生活质量的影响进行直接观察。研究人员专注于三个主要工作领域来开发具有临床意义的工具：1）设计和实施侵入性最小且能可靠记录运动或生理信号的传感器；2）开发以最适合每个应用的方式从多个可穿戴传感器中不显眼地收集数据并将此信息传递给临床医生的系统；3）设计和实施算法，从使用可穿戴技术记录的数据中提取临床相关信息。《神经工程与康复杂志》已就该主题发表了一系列文章，目的是描述该研究领域的现状，并指出与物理医学与康复临床实践相关的新兴应用。
