RehaInteract: 3D Kinesitherapy for Domestic Environments

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Key Terms in this Chapter

Movement Analysis: Movement analysis refers to the automatic analysis of sensor signals to determine the underlying motions and to evaluate them with respect to a given target model.

MIT-Manus System: The development of MIT-Manus is believed to have started over 20 years ago by Hermano Igo Krebs, a principal research scientist in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. The core principle of the system is that stroke patients may see maximum positive outcomes when they have to make a conscious effort during physical therapy. The system simply requires the patient to grip a robotic joystick that chaperons the patient’s arm, wrist or hand as he or she tries to make particular movements. This would assist the brain in making new connections which could eventually help the patient re-learn movement of the limb on his or her own. Patients employing the MIT-Manus are required to grasp a joystick-like handle attached to a computer monitor. The monitor shows tasks that may be identical to those found in simple video games. A typical task will include the subject attempting to move the robot handle toward a moving or stationary target displayed on the computer monitor. Movement of the person in the wrong direction or no movement at all will cause the robotic arm to gently nudge his or her arm in the correct direction ( Crasto 2010 ).

Semantic Interoperability: Semantic interoperability is a specialization of the general definition that is related to the understanding and interpretation of data that is exchanged for different actors of a system. Semantic interoperability provides a common understanding of the data, by using common nomenclatures and data formats. It targets the meaning of the data and not the packaging (i.e. syntax).

Kinesitherapy: Kinesitherapy is the therapeutic treatment of disease by passive and active muscular movements. It may involve massages, yoga or exercise. It is considered to be a well-established therapeutic resource. Various devices are used for this therapy including vibrating devices to stimulate the muscles.

Interoperability: Interoperability allows actors in distributed systems to work together by providing a common understanding of the exchanged information. The general definition not only applies to information in the sense of data. It also includes components (e.g. devices) that can be integrated among different actors or replaced.

Serious Game: A serious game or applied game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The “serious” adjective is generally prepended to refer to products used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, and politics.

Electronic Health Record (EHR): An EHR is a collection of health information or information about health services a patient received. It is associated with one individual (i.e. a patient). The purpose of an EHR is to share the health information among actors involved in the treatment process of a patient. Therefore, the necessary data is collected from Care delivery Operators that were involved in a patient's treatment process and maintain health information about this patient in their private information systems.