Cervical dystonia and rehabilitation

 

Home-based physical therapy is an alternative to daily exercise; however, feedback is absent in this context, so the patient could perform unintended movements and affect the rehabilitation outcomes. Moreover, a lack of progress perception can lead to demotivation to follow the treatment.

 

This project aims to develop a system to give people feedback about how they perform their exercises at home while motivating them to keep following their treatment. Considering the specific needs of each patient (direction of the cervical dystonia, presence/ absence of tremor), we aim to give patient-tailored feedback in connection to serious gaming to promote the use of the system and enhance adherence to the treatment. The optimal quantity and location of sensors to get information about the user's movement and muscles' activation are among the challenges of this research.