Progress on Range of Motion After Total Knee Replacement by Sensor-Based System

• Published in: Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) Vol. 20; no. 6
• Main Authors: Huang, Yo-Ping, Liu, Yu-Yu, Hsu, Wei-Hsiu, Lai, Li-Ju, Lee, Mel S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland 18.03.2020
• Subjects: Accelerometry - instrumentation; Accelerometry - methods; Actigraphy - instrumentation; Actigraphy - methods; Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Arthroplasty, Replacement, Knee - rehabilitation; Biomechanical Phenomena; Biosensing Techniques - instrumentation; Biosensing Techniques - methods; Female; Humans; Knee Joint - physiology; Male; Middle Aged; Mobile Applications; Monitoring, Physiologic - instrumentation; Monitoring, Physiologic - methods; Physical Therapy Modalities - instrumentation; Range of Motion, Articular - physiology; Recovery of Function - physiology; Rotation; Telemedicine - instrumentation; Telemedicine - methods; Telemetry - instrumentation; Telemetry - methods; Treatment Outcome; Wearable Electronic Devices; Young Adult; total knee replacement (TKR); inertial measurement unit (IMU); range of motion (ROM); rehabilitation progress
• ISSN: 1424-8220; 1424-8220
• DOI: 10.3390/s20061703

For total knee replacement (TKR) patients, rehabilitation after the surgery is key toregaining mobility. This study proposes a sensor-based system for effectively monitoringrehabilitation progress after TKR. The system comprises a hardware module consisting of thetriaxial accelerometer and gyroscope, a microcontroller, and a Bluetooth module, and a softwareapp for monitoring the motion of the knee joint. Three indices, namely the number of swings, themaximum knee flexion angle, and the duration of practice each time, were used as metrics tomeasure the knee rehabilitation progress. The proposed sensor device has advantages such asusability without spatiotemporal constraints and accuracy in monitoring the rehabilitation progress.The performance of the proposed system was compared with the measured range of motion of theCybex isokinetic dynamometer (or Cybex) professional rehabilitation equipment, and the resultsrevealed that the average absolute errors of the measured angles were between 1.65° and 3.27° forthe TKR subjects, depending on the swing speed. Experimental results verified that the proposedsystem is effective and comparable with the professional equipment.