Tele-wobble: A telerehabilitation wobble board for lower extremity therapy

Abstract

Ankle deficiencies occur quite often among poststroke patients and people working in physically demanding professions in general. Computerized telerehabilitation systems have emerged as promising assistive tools for effective diagnosis and rehabilitation interventions. Consequently, the process of recording and analyzing the medical data captured by such systems has become vital for the generation of efficient reports that can assist clinicians to assess their patient's health. In this paper, we present our telerehabilitation system called "Tele-Wobble" that consists of a modified version of a wobble board mounted with sensors and actuators, a software training game, and a web-service architecture that allows for remote monitoring of the patient's training progress. The system aims to provide clinicians with key performance measurements captured during the patient's training session. Our evaluations showed that Tele-Wobble may offer an efficient and cost-effective home-based rehabilitation for patients with ankle deficiencies.