Monitoring and Visualizing Stroke Rehabilitation Progress using Wearable Sensors

Abstract

Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide, and recovering mobility is an important goal during post-stroke rehabilitation. In this work, we present a study to verify the feasibility of monitoring and visualizing longitudinal stroke gait rehabilitation progress using wearable sensors. Wearable devices such as inertial measurement units (IMUs) are easy-to-use and cost-effective tools for quantifying mobility. However, there is a need for research on longitudinal monitoring of stroke rehabilitation progress with wearables, as well as generating clinically relevant insights using appropriate visualizations. To this aim, we recruited ten stroke patients in their early rehabilitation stage. We collected and analyzed the IMU-derived gait features across two visits, and presented visualizations of the foot movement trajectories as well as the spatio-temporal gait parameters in the average, symmetry, and variation domains to quantify changes in gait. Our visualization and quantification methods are evaluated and validated by clinical experts, and prove to be promising in aiding clinicians to monitor rehabilitation progression.