Wearable Movement Sensors for Rehabilitation: A Focused Review of Technological and Clinical Advances.
Franchino Porciuncula, Anna Virginia Roto, Deepak Kumar and 4 others
PMID 30269807WHAT IT FOUND
Wearable movement sensors can track gait and activity outside clinics, but their clinical use is uneven and many devices lack validation.
Check the specific sensor before relying on it.
Key findings
01Wearable movement sensors can measure body orientation, motion, direction, and physiological state in ecological settings, giving clinicians objective movement data.
02In knee osteoarthritis, wearable sensor data showed that only 12.9% of men and 7.7% of women met aerobic physical activity guidelines.
03For Parkinson disease, only 9 of 73 devices considered had acceptable measurement properties and could be recommended.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The review is not a comprehensive systematic review, so studies with similar technologies and applications may be missing. It focuses on stroke, Parkinson disease, Huntington disease, knee osteoarthritis, and running, so it may not apply to other patient groups. Many applications are described as emerging or preliminary, not established clinical practice. Sensor reliability, validity, and sensitivity vary by device, condition, measure, and environment. The knee adduction moment biofeedback result came from healthy individuals in a lab using a prototype device, not from people with knee osteoarthritis in daily life. Tele-rehabilitation evidence is described as limited and moderate, and privacy and security issues remain.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this review as evidence that wearable sensors improve patient outcomes. It describes technologies, selected studies, and early applications, and it states that widespread clinical use has not yet been realized.