Rehabilitative Technologies that Monitor Metabolic Demands of Prosthetics in Lower Extremity Amputees during Rehabilitation

Hstar proposes a real-time wearable amputee rehabilitation monitor (WARM) system. It will enhance amputee rehabilitation process with metabolic cost monitoring, gait analysis, and comfort analysis. It will support users Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and provide physicians, physical therapists and prosthetists important information of lower limb amputees to achieve successful rehabilitation process and identify any potential issues that may arise at patient-prosthetic intervention for a synergetic prosthetic integration. This can be achieved through combination of sensory fusion for metabolic cost estimation utilizing embedded sensing on prosthetic device and optional wearable sensing information from physiological, kinematic and kinetic sensing with gait analysis and emotional sensing (e.g., affective computing). This system will: 1) support real-time metabolic cost monitoring using embedded prosthetic sensing and additional wearable sensing, 2) provide gait analysis to achieve synergetic locomotion via parameter optimization, 3) support affective computing to enhance amputee patients comfort with prosthetic rehabilitation and recovered locomotion, 4) provide a remote platform for necessary continuous at-home therapy procedures through telepresence supervision, and 5) support live monitoring of amputees rehabilitation status remotely in telepresence mode to further enhance amputee patient healthcare and QOL (Quality of Life).