Physio at Home - Exploring Visual Guidance and Feedback Techniques for At-home Rehabilitation

Tang, R. (2015). Physio at Home - Exploring Visual Guidance and Feedback Techniques for At-home Rehabilitation. In University of Calgary.

Abstract

Physiotherapy patients learn exercises for rehabilitation with the help of a physiotherapist, but are at risk of re-injury while exercising alone at home. This thesis explores the design and usage of visualizations for guiding patients through physiotherapy exercises at home. I interviewed a practicing physiotherapist to gain knowledge on physiotherapy practices, and then developed a set of visual characteristics for movement guidance: plane/range of movement, positions/angles to maintain, extent of movement, and rate of movement. I applied these in the design of movement-guiding visualizations in two prototype systems: Zipples and Physio@Home. Zipples was a Microsoft Kinect-based prototype featuring robust movement recording and playback functionality, supported by a variety of visualizations. Physio@Home was a Vicon-based iteration that improved on Zipples with an annotation tool, an iteratively-designed Wedge visualization, and multiple camera perspectives. I evaluated both systems with laboratory studies to measure their effectiveness in having participants follow pre-recorded exercises. I conclude with findings from both systems and studies, and discuss potential areas for future work.

Materials

PDF File (https://pub-581aa5465e9d48588599e591c640cba1.r2.dev/papers/2015-mscthesis-tang.pdf)

BibTeX

@mastersthesis{tang2015thesis,
  type = {thesis},
  pdfurl = {https://pub-581aa5465e9d48588599e591c640cba1.r2.dev/papers/2015-mscthesis-tang.pdf},
  abstract = {
Physiotherapy patients learn exercises for rehabilitation with the help of a physiotherapist, but
are at risk of re-injury while exercising alone at home. This thesis explores the design and usage
of visualizations for guiding patients through physiotherapy exercises at home. I interviewed a
practicing physiotherapist to gain knowledge on physiotherapy practices, and then developed a
set of visual characteristics for movement guidance: plane/range of movement, positions/angles
to maintain, extent of movement, and rate of movement. I applied these in the design of
movement-guiding visualizations in two prototype systems: Zipples and Physio@Home. Zipples
was a Microsoft Kinect-based prototype featuring robust movement recording and playback
functionality, supported by a variety of visualizations. Physio@Home was a Vicon-based
iteration that improved on Zipples with an annotation tool, an iteratively-designed Wedge
visualization, and multiple camera perspectives. I evaluated both systems with laboratory studies
to measure their effectiveness in having participants follow pre-recorded exercises. I conclude
with findings from both systems and studies, and discuss potential areas for future work.},
  month = {06},
  year = {2015},
  school = {University of Calgary},
  title = {Physio at Home - Exploring Visual Guidance and Feedback
Techniques for At-home Rehabilitation},
  author = {Tang, Richard},
}