Study of Multimedia Technology in Posture Training for the Elderly

Chih-Chen Chen, De-Jou Hong, Shih-Ching Chen, Ying-Ying Shih, Yu-Luen Chen

Department of Computer Science, National Taipei University of Education, Taipei, Chinese Taipei.
Department of Computer Science, National Taipei University of Education, Taipei, Chinese Taipei Department of Information Management, St. Mary’s Medicine, Nursing and Management College, Yilan, Chinese Taipei.
Department of Management Information System, Hwa Hsia Institute of Technology, Taipei, Chinese Taipei.
Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Chinese Taipei.
Department Physical & Rehabilitation Medicine, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Tao-Yuan, Chinese Taipei.

DOI: 10.4236/eng.2013.510B010                

Abstract

Wrist diseases, also known as “mama hand”, “mouse hand” or “keyboard hand”, are commonly seen and easily over-looked symptoms in daily life. The diseases are mostly related to incorrect exercise or excessive force imposed on hands, leading to tenosynovitis or carpal tunnel syndrome. To alleviate the symptoms or even to recover, besides drug treatment, supplementary rehabilitation training is necessary. The rehabilitation process forces the affected wrist area to continually exercise in order to stimulate the self-repair signals sent to the affected area for partial restoration, if not all, of the supposed functions. In modern world, using information technology to improve the rehabilitation environment with better approaches has become a trend. In this study, software programs coded in C# and Flash are developed to work on the Bluetooth ball hardware to facilitate the rehabilitation. The basic principle is to use the reaction from the Bluetooth ball’s swaying or swinging to drive the movement of the objects on the computer screen, making the supposedly boring rehabilitation much more fun and vivid in the interactive multimedia environment, thus gaining better treatment effect. Also, RFID, Internet and databases can be integrated into this facility to provide patient identification and data storage for references in making rehabilitation training programs.

Keywords

Rehabilitation; Bluetooth Ball; RFID; Databases; Interactive Multimedia

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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