Patients of people holding physical therapy jobs might soon have an "exercise coach" that delivers personalized measurable results of the movements they are working on improving, according to The Tartan. The exercise coach is is a soft pad, like a brace, that the person straps to their knee prior to exercising. The "coach" then uses technology to track the patient's movement.
Researchers with the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University are working on the program to treat patients suffering from the debilitating duress of knee osteoarthritis, reports the student newspaper at Carnegie Mellon University.
"A majority of patients are just sent home with paper instructions and pictures, and they self-report back to the therapist," Ph. D. student Portia Taylor with the Carnegie Mellon University department of biomedical engineering told the news source, drawing a distinction as to what the device she's helping create will assist with. "It will say something like, you need to keep your torso forward; you're at a 45-degree angle, you need to be at 60."
Typically impacting older people, osteoarthritis is likely to cause suffering in almost 50 percent of the population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Taylor, who is the research leader, presented her findings at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in early January.