Monitoring Everyday Life Motor Activity in Children

Monitoring Everyday Life Motor Activity in Children

The overall aim of this project is to monitor everyday life activity of children with neurological disorders undergoing rehabilitation using wearable sensors capable of accurate and unobtrusive long-term measurement.

Specific objectives:

1. To adapt the sensors for the use by children with neurological disorders. The focus lies on the exact positioning and the investigation of the needed amount of IMUs.
2. To validate the sensor data with collected video recordings and to develop specific algorithms to automatically extract specific movements and to analyze long-term sensor recordings.
3. To perform a cross-sectional study to assess intensity, task-specificity and duration of upper and lower limb activity during rehabilitation. There, we aim to gain objective information about levels and types of activity during rehabilitation in relation to age, gender and disorder.
4. To conduct a responsiveness study to assess whether or not the sensor output is able to highlight changes over time during rehabilitation.

Therefore, at time point T=0 (shortly after admission to our center), participants are equipped with 3 inertial measurement units (1 at each wrist and 1 at the sternum). Additionally, a small wearable camera is mounted to the chest. The participants then return to their everyday life for 4 hours (no therapies, measurement period is in the evening). Afterwards, the equipment is removed again. To investigate responsiveness, the same protocol is being repeated 4 weeks later (time point T=1).

Inclusion Criteria:

• Various neuro-orthopedic diagnoses. Broad inclusion criteria are required to better generalize study results to the patient population of our center.
• Both walking or in wheelchair, but mobility independent from assisting people
• Cognitive ability to be able to follow simple verbal instructions.
• Signed informed consent from legal guardians and also from adolescents aged 15 years or older before study onset.