Staszuk Arleta, Wiatrak Benita, Tadeusiewicz Ryszard, Karuga-Kuźniewska Ewa, Rybak Zbigniew
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Automatics, Computer Science and Biomedical Engineering, AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland.
Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Wrocław Medical University, Poland.
Acta Bioeng Biomech. 2016;18(4):55-62.
Telerehabilitation is one of the newest branches of telemedicine which has been developed because patients need regular trainings outside the medical institution but still under specialist supervision. It helps maintain regularity of exercises and reduces costs. The professional and advanced systems for telerehabilitation are presented in papers, however, there is still lack of development of minor systems which provide therapeutic values and are more accessible to people. Therefore we focus on a solution for hand telerehabilitation of poststroke patients, based solely on a personal computer and camera.
We focused on the manipulative hand (fingers, metacarpus, wrist) movements trainings for patients with cerebral palsy. The contact between patient and physiotherapist is provided by using web cameras and web service. Additionally, the camera can be used to monitor the effectiveness of performed exercises. Computer vision system keeps track of the patient's hand movement. The digital image processing is used to detect if the patient performs exercises correctly.
We created web service and software application TeleReh that provides therapeutic values for the hand impaired people. The system created was evaluated by three physiotherapists, one doctor and a cerebral palsy patient.
Our solution applies to all patients who have undergone basic rehabilitation in hospital and need to continue hand rehabilitation at home. The main advantages are: easy adaptation to the individual needs and abilities, monitoring the progress by using automatically generated reports after each training session. It is worth noticing that discussion between IT specialists, rehabilitants and patients was necessary to achieve good results.
远程康复是远程医疗的最新分支之一，其发展是因为患者需要在医疗机构外但仍在专家监督下进行定期训练。它有助于保持锻炼的规律性并降低成本。论文中介绍了专业且先进的远程康复系统，然而，仍缺乏能提供治疗价值且更易于人们使用的小型系统。因此，我们专注于一种仅基于个人电脑和摄像头的中风后患者手部远程康复解决方案。
我们专注于为脑瘫患者进行手部（手指、掌骨、手腕）运动训练。通过网络摄像头和网络服务实现患者与物理治疗师之间的联系。此外，摄像头可用于监测所进行锻炼的效果。计算机视觉系统跟踪患者的手部运动。利用数字图像处理来检测患者是否正确进行锻炼。
我们创建了网络服务和软件应用程序TeleReh，为手部有损伤的人提供治疗价值。所创建的系统由三名物理治疗师、一名医生和一名脑瘫患者进行了评估。
我们的解决方案适用于所有在医院接受过基础康复且需要在家继续进行手部康复的患者。主要优点包括：易于适应个体需求和能力，每次训练后通过自动生成的报告监测进展情况。值得注意的是，要取得良好效果，信息技术专家、康复人员和患者之间的讨论是必要的。
