A Movement Classification of Polymyalgia Rheumatica Patients Using Myoelectric Sensors

Gait disorder is common among people with neurological disease and musculoskeletal disorders. The detection of gait disorders plays an integral role in designing appropriate rehabilitation protocols. This study presents a clinical gait analysis of patients with polymyalgia rheumatica to determine impaired gait patterns using machine learning models. A clinical gait assessment was conducted at KATH hospital between August and September 2022, and the 25 recruited participants comprised 18 patients and 7 control subjects. The demographics of the participants follow: age 56 years ± 7, height 175 cm ± 8, and weight 82 kg ± 10. Electromyography data were collected from four strained hip muscles of patients, which were the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, biceps femoris, and semitendinosus. Four classification models were used-namely, support vector machine (SVM), rotation forest (RF), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), and decision tree (DT)-to distinguish the gait patterns for the two groups. SVM recorded the highest accuracy of 85% among the classifiers, while KNN had 75%, RF had 80%, and DT had the lowest accuracy of 70%. Furthermore, the SVM classifier had the highest sensitivity of 92%, while RF had 86%, DT had 90%, and KNN had the lowest sensitivity of 84%. The classifiers achieved significant results in discriminating between the impaired gait pattern of patients with polymyalgia rheumatica and control subjects. This information could be useful for clinicians designing therapeutic exercises and may be used for developing a decision support system for diagnostic purposes.

Design Validation of a Low-Cost EMG Sensor Compared to a Commercial-Based System for Measuring Muscle Activity and Fatigue

Electromyography (EMG) sensors have been used for measuring muscle signals and for diagnosing neuromuscular disease. Available commercial EMG sensor are expensive and not easily available for individuals. The aim of the study is to validate our designed low-cost sensor against a well-known commercial system for measuring muscle activity and fatigue assessment. The evaluation of the designed system was done through a series of dynamic exercises performed by volunteers. Our low-cost EMG sensor and the commercially available system were placed on the vastus lateralis muscle to concurrently record the signal in a maximum voluntary contraction (MVC). The signal analysis was done using two validation indicators: Spearman's correlation, and intra-class cross correlation on SPSS 26.0 version. For the muscle fatigue assessment, the root mean square (RMS), mean absolute value (MAV) and mean frequency (MNF) indicators were used. The results at the peak and mean level muscle contraction intensity were computed. The relative agreement for the two systems was excellent at peak level muscle contraction range (ICC 0.74-0.92), average 0.83 and mean level muscle contraction intensity range (ICC 0.65-0.85) with an average of 0.74. The Spearman's correlation average was 0.76 with the range of (0.71-0.85) at peak level contraction, whiles the mean level contraction average was 0.71 at a range of (0.62-0.81). In determining muscle fatigue, the RMS and MAV showed increasing values in the time domain, while the MEF decreased in the frequency domain. Overall, the results indicated a good to excellent agreement of the two systems and confirmed the reliability of our design. The low-cost sensor also proved to be suitable for muscle fatigue assessment. Our designed system can therefore be implemented for rehabilitation, sports science, and ergonomics.

Kinect4FOG: monitoring and improving mobility in people with Parkinson's using a novel system incorporating the Microsoft Kinect v2

Parkinson's is a neurodegenerative condition associated with several motor symptoms including tremors and slowness of movement. Freezing of gait (FOG); the sensation of one's feet being "glued" to the floor, is one of the most debilitating symptoms associated with advanced Parkinson's. FOG not only contributes to falls and related injuries, but also compromises quality of life as people often avoid engaging in functional daily activities both inside and outside the home. In the current study, we describe a novel system designed to detect FOG and falling in people with Parkinson's (PwP) as well as monitoring and improving their mobility using laser-based visual cues cast by an automated laser system. The system utilizes a RGB-D sensor based on Microsoft Kinect v2 and a laser casting system consisting of two servo motors and an Arduino microcontroller. This system was evaluated by 15 PwP with FOG. Here, we present details of the system along with a summary of feedback provided by PwP. Despite limitations regarding its outdoor use, feedback was very positive in terms of domestic usability and convenience, where 12/15 PwP showed interest in installing and using the system at their homes. Implications for Rehabilitation Providing an automatic and remotely manageable monitoring system for PwP gait analysis and fall detection. Providing an automatic, unobtrusive and dynamic visual cue system for PwP based on laser line projection. Gathering feedback from PwP about the practical usage of the implemented system through focus group events.

Investigating the efficiency of IEEE 802.15.4 for medical monitoring applications

Recent advancements in wireless communications technologies bring us one step closer to provide reliable Telecare services as an alternative to patients staying in a hospital mainly for monitoring purposes. In this research we investigate the efficiency of IEEE 802.15.4 in a simple scenario where a patient is being monitored using an ECG and a blood analysis module. This approach binds well with assisted living solutions, by sharing the network infrastructure for both monitoring and control while taking advantage of the low power features of the protocol. Such applications are becoming more and more realistic to implement as IEEE 802.15.4 compatible hardware becomes increasingly available. Our aim is to examine the impact of Beacon and Superframe Order in the medium access delay, dropped packets, end to end delay, average retransmission attempts and consumed power focusing on this bandwidth demanding situation where the network load does not allow low duty cycles, in order to draw some conclusions on the effect that this will have to telemonitoring applications.

A novel method to detect heart beat rate using a mobile phone

Heart Beat Rate calculation has traditionally been conducted using specialized hardware most commonly in the form of pulse oximeters or Electrocardiogram devices. Even though these methods offer high reliability, they require the users to have special sensor to measure their heart rate. In this paper we propose a system capable of estimating the heart beat rate using just a camera from a commercially available mobile phone. The advantage of this method is that the user does not need specialized hardware and s/he can take a measurement in virtually any place under almost any circumstances. Moreover the measurement provided can be used as a tool for health coaching applications or effective telecare services aimed in enhancing the user's well being.

DoctorEye: A clinically driven multifunctional platform, for accurate processing of tumors in medical images

This paper presents a novel, open access interactive platform for 3D medical image analysis, simulation and visualization, focusing in oncology images. The platform was developed through constant interaction and feedback from expert clinicians integrating a thorough analysis of their requirements while having an ultimate goal of assisting in accurately delineating tumors. It allows clinicians not only to work with a large number of 3D tomographic datasets but also to efficiently annotate multiple regions of interest in the same session. Manual and semi-automatic segmentation techniques combined with integrated correction tools assist in the quick and refined delineation of tumors while different users can add different components related to oncology such as tumor growth and simulation algorithms for improving therapy planning. The platform has been tested by different users and over large number of heterogeneous tomographic datasets to ensure stability, usability, extensibility and robustness with promising results.

AVAILABILITY

the platform, a manual and tutorial videos are available at: http://biomodeling.ics.forth.gr. it is free to use under the GNU General Public License.

DoctorEye: A multifunctional open platform for fast annotation and visualization of tumors in medical images

This paper describes a flexible and easy-to-use annotation platform (GUI) for quick and precise identification and delineation of tumors in medical images. The design of the platform is clinically driven in order to ensure that the clinician can efficiently and intuitively annotate large number of 3D tomographic datasets. Both manual and well-known semiautomatic segmentation techniques are available in the platform allowing clinician to annotate multiple regions of interest at the same session. Additionally, it includes contour drawing, refinement and labeling tools that can effectively assist in the delineation of tumors. Furthermore, segmented tumor regions can be annotated, labeled, deleted, added and redefined. The platform has been tested over several MRI datasets to assess usability, extensibility and robustness with promising results.

Using HSPA to improve the telemedical links on a moving ambulance

As the demand for faster and more effective health care increases, there is a growing need to establish mobile, high-speed communications between a moving ambulance and a consultation point (usually a hospital). The recent addition of HSPA (HSDPA and HSUPA) into the UMTS suite provides higher bandwidth and reduced delays, making this choice ideal for real-time telemedical applications. In this paper, we will describe a set of scenarios that took place in a typical large city area, along with their equivalent results: a moving ambulance was linked with a consultation station using HSPA and several videoconferencing sessions were initiated. Best-case, worst-case and average scenarios were recorded. Furthermore, in areas where the UMTS reception was marginal, a repeater was placed on top of the vehicle to boost up the signal power and thus maintain the higher bandwidth. Finally, treating doctors were asked to evaluate the effectiveness of this system's outputs, based on a variety of objective and subjective criteria.

Mobile consultant: evaluation of additional services

As the need for mobility in the medical world increases, newer systems and applications came to light; many of them based on wireless and mobile networks. PDA based systems were presented in the past, capable of videoconferencing and transmitting high quality images between a roaming consultant and a fixed point in the hospital. These systems not only had desirable characteristics but also incorporated additional services that were found of value: paging, Voice over IP calling, Internet, email, intranet, patient record update, etc This paper presents an engineering and clinical evaluation of those additional services based on both objective and subjective criteria. It concludes that such complementary services can be desirable as they increase personnel mobility, utilize the hospital resources more efficiently while at the same time increase productivity and decrease the cost of hardware and communications.

3G Networks in Emergency Telemedicine - An In-Depth Evaluation & Analysis

The evolution of telecommunications technologies in connection with the robustness and the fidelity these new systems provide, have opened up many new horizons as regards the provision of healthcare and the quality of service from the side of the experts to that of the patients. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the third generation telecommunications systems that are only recently being deployed in Europe, as well as argue on why a transition from 2G and 2.5G to 3G telecommunications systems could prove to be crucial, especially in relation to emergency telemedicine. The experimental results of the use of these systems are analyzed, the implementation of a tele-consultation unit is presented and their exploitation capabilities are explored.

Ambulance 3G

Minimising the time required for a patient to receive primary care has always been the concern of the Accidents and Emergency units. Ambulances are usually the first to arrive on the scene and to administer first aid. However, as the time that it takes to transfer the patient to the hospital increases, so does the fatality rate. In this paper, a mobile teleconsultation system is presented, based primarily on third generation mobile links and on Wi-Fi hotspots around a city. This system can be installed inside an ambulance and will permit high-resolution videoconferencing between the moving vehicle and a doctor or a consultant within a base station (usually a hospital). In addition to video and voice, high quality still images and screenshots from medical equipment can also be sent. The test was carried out in Athens, Greece where a 3G system was recently deployed by Vodafone. The results show that the system can perform satisfactory in most conditions and can effectively increase the patient's quality of service, while having a modest cost.