An Intelligent Body Posture Analysis Model Using Multi-Sensors for Long-Term Physical Rehabilitation

J Med Syst. 2017 Apr;41(4):71. doi: 10.1007/s10916-017-0708-5. Epub 2017 Mar 14.

Abstract

Sensors can be installed on various body parts to provide information for computer diagnosis to identify the current body state. However, as human posture is subject to gravity, the direction of the force on each limb differs. For example, the directions of gravitational force on legs and trunk differ. In addition, each person's height and structure of limbs differs, hence, the acceleration and rotation resulted from such differences on force and length of the limbs of a person in motion would be different, and be presented by cases of different postures. Thus, how to present body postures through skeleton system equations, and achieve an long-term physical rehabilitation, according to the different limb characteristics of each person, is a challenging research issue. This paper proposes a novel scheme named as "Intelligent Body Posture Analysis Model", which uses multiple acceleration sensors and gyroscopes to detect body motion patterns. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is proved by conducting a large number of practical experiments and tests.

Keywords: Body posture analysis model; Intelligent healthcare system; Long-term physical rehabilitation.

MeSH terms

  • Biomechanical Phenomena
  • Body Weights and Measures
  • Humans
  • Models, Biological*
  • Monitoring, Ambulatory / instrumentation*
  • Physical Therapy Modalities / instrumentation*
  • Posture / physiology*