Smart Shirt for Uncontrolled Movement Retraining

Abstract

Uncontrolled movement is a major cause of musculoskeletal pain and pathology. Retraining has proven to be an effective method for movement control improvement but it is a time-consuming process that requires much attention from a physiotherapist. The efficiency of movement retraining can be increased by independent work of a patient but it can prove difficult or potentially harmful if the patient lacks understanding of the correct movement or cannot verify the accuracy of the movement. This paper introduces a smart shirt system for movement control retraining assistance. The smart shirt system consists of 11 textile stretch sensors attached to a compression shirt for movement monitoring. To verify the ability of the shirt to assist uncontrolled movement retraining, a set of 12 tests were selected from the Kinetic Control method, and measurements were obtained both for correct and incorrect movements. The acquired measurements were analyzed to determine signals from sensors that would give the most significant information for each test depending on the involved anatomy. It was confirmed that the smart shirt system could be employed for evaluation of the test performance.