Visual and human-interpretable feedback for assisting physical activity

Abstract

Physical activity is essential for stroke survivors for recovering some autonomy in daily life activities. Post-stroke patients are initially subject to physical therapy under the supervision of a health professional, but due to economical aspects, home based rehabilitation is eventually suggested. In order to support the physical activity of stroke patients at home, this paper presents a system for guiding the user in how to properly perform certain actions and movements. This is achieved by presenting feedback in form of visual information and human-interpretable messages. The core of the proposed approach is the analysis of the motion required for aligning body-parts with respect to a template skeleton pose, and how this information can be presented to the user in form of simple recommendations. Experimental results in three datasets show the potential of the proposed framework.