Smart Rehabilitation Garment for Posture Monitoring

Abstract

Posture monitoring and correction technologies can support prevention and treatment of spinal pain or can help detect and avoid compensatory movements during the neurological rehabilitation of upper extremities, which can be very important to ensure their effectiveness. We describe the design and development of Smart Rehabilitation Garment (SRG) a wearable system designed to support posture correction. The SRG combines a number of inertial measurement units (IMUs), controlled by an Arduino processor. It provides feedback with vibration on the garment, audible alarm signals and visual instruction through a Bluetooth connected smartphone. We discuss the placement of sensing modules, the garment design, the feedback design and the integration of smart textiles and wearable electronics which aimed at achieving wearability and ease of use. We report on the system’s accuracy as compared to optical tracker method.