Data-Driven Personalization of a Physiotherapy Care Pathway: Case Study of Posture Scanning.
Olli Korhonen, Karin Väyrynen, Tino Krautwald and 4 others
PMID 32930667WHAT IT FOUND
Stakeholders described posture scanning data as a possible way to support physiotherapy by making movement visible, informing shared decisions, and tracking change.
The paper reports interview themes, not measured patient outcomes.
Key findings
01Interviews with Qinematic staff, healthy individuals representing health care users, and physical therapy professionals identified three types of support posture scanning data could provide to personalized physiotherapy: modeling the condition, visualization for shared understanding, and evaluating the impact of intervention.
02Posture scanning data were described as complementing verbal descriptions, quantifying movement to define a baseline, and visualizing decreased movement to make the link between pain or problem and care options more concrete.
03Aggregated posture scanning data were described as especially useful when pain had not changed but movement had, and as a basis for comparing scans to evaluate whether movement levels had improved.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The study interviewed healthy individuals representing health care users, not people currently receiving physiotherapy, so their views may not match patients with pain or movement problems. The interviews were conducted in Northern European countries, so the findings may not account for cultural differences elsewhere. The Movement Lab was still under development and was shown as a paper prototype, so some reported possibilities were not tested as working software. The paper reports qualitative themes and stakeholder expectations, not randomised comparisons or measured patient outcomes. The paper does not state how many participants or interviews were included, so the breadth of stakeholder views cannot be judged.
Declared interests
The posture scanning system was designed by Qinematic AB. Author GB is the founder of Qinematic, and author TK is an employee of Qinematic.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that posture scanning improves physiotherapy outcomes. The study reports interview themes from company staff, healthy individuals, and physiotherapy professionals about a partly unfinished system, and it did not measure patient outcomes.