Smart objects and biofeedback for a pediatric rehabilitation 2.0

Abstract

The progressive miniaturization of electronic devices and their exponential increase in processing, storage and transmission capabilities, is opening new scenarios in pervasive computing, like the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Internet Of Things (IoT). Although most of the investigations in the recent years focused on remote monitoring and diagnostic efforts, rehabilitation too could be positively affected by the use of these solutions, since these small Smart Objects may enable novel quantitative approaches. In this paper, we present the preliminary efforts in designing a pediatric rehabilitation protocol based on Smart Objects and biofeedback, which we administered to a small sample of hemiplegic children. Despite the few treatments (not suitable to assess any change in the subjects’ abilities), children enjoyed participating in the study, and the initial qualitative/quantitative results highlight that such approach could represent an interesting starting point to fuel the scientific and clinical discussion towards a Pediatric Rehabilitation 2.0.