CASE REPORT
Fun During Knee Rehabilitation: Feasibility and Acceptability Testing of a New Android-Based Training Device
Thomas Sanjay Weber-Spickschen*, Christian Colcuc, Alexander Hanke, Jan-Dierk Clausen, Paul Abraham James, Hauke Horstmann
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2017Volume: 11
First Page: 29
Last Page: 36
Publisher Id: TOMINFOJ-11-29
DOI: 10.2174/1874431101711010029
Article History:
Received Date: 12/02/2017Revision Received Date: 31/05/2017
Acceptance Date: 02/06/2017
Electronic publication date: 10/08/2017
Collection year: 2017
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Purpose:
The initial goals of rehabilitation after knee injuries and operations are to achieve full knee extension and to activate quadriceps muscle. In addition to regular physiotherapy, an android-based knee training device is designed to help patients achieve these goals and improve compliance in the early rehabilitation period. This knee training device combines fun in a computer game with muscular training or rehabilitation. Our aim was to test the feasibility and acceptability of this new device.
Methods:
50 volunteered subjects enrolled to test out the computer game aided device. The first game was the high-striker game, which recorded maximum knee extension power. The second game involved controlling quadriceps muscular power to simulate flying an aeroplane in order to record accuracy of muscle activation. The subjects evaluated this game by completing a simple questionnaire.
Results:
No technical problem was encountered during the usage of this device. No subjects complained of any discomfort after using this device. Measurements including maximum knee extension power, knee muscle activation and control were recorded successfully. Subjects rated their experience with the device as either excellent or very good and agreed that the device can motivate and monitor the progress of knee rehabilitation training.
Conclusion:
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first android-based tool available to fast track knee rehabilitation training. All subjects gave very positive feedback to this computer game aided knee device.
