Physio Aid

Project Title

Physio Aid

Project Area of Specialization Internet of ThingsProject Summary

Going to the Doctor after a bone fracture surgery is always a nuisance, you’re given a set of exercises to perform for a stipulated period of time. Then you’ll go back to the doctor to see signs of any potential progress.

But what if there is no progress? What if you learn that you’ve been doing the exercises all wrong and now, you’ll have to start all over? Such incidents are very common with physiotherapy patients and they not only waste time and effort but can also be painful.

In an effort to rid ourselves from this issue, we’ve deduced a scheme of allowing technology to take over and once again make our lives easier. A physiotherapy app that gives real-time feedback regarding the patient’s exercise routine, his form and the duration of the exercise will help make our life a lot easier. Making this vision into a reality will help save costs from a weekly or monthly visit to the doctor as well as streamlining the entire post-surgery experience.

Project Objectives

The target is to create an app which displays data in such a form that is both understandable by the physiotherapist and the patient so that even the patient can judge his or hers own progress and can make adjustments without the necessary involvement of the physiotherapist.

So, after the creation of the app, the primary focus will shift to gather the data from the sensors and then transmit it into the application. This will be done through IoT and the application will first connect to the sensor. There will be a status mark which will provide the user with the current status of the connection between the application and the sensors. Apart from this, once the data has been accumulated and provided to the application, then comes the major task. Presenting the data in a readable form is going to be some task which is going to require loads of concentration and effort.

At the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to remove the burden and ambiguity on the patients’ mind. Along with this, making the lives of the therapist easier in the send that they will be able to access and analyze the progress made by the patient over a course of time.

The points that will be targeted are:

• Detect the patient movements properly.
• And based on that detection form a judgement if the movement is correct or not.
• Finally, the biggest challenge being, display the results to both the entities, the patient and the physiotherapist in such a form that the progress and not only be judged but could be improved.

Project Implementation Method

Physio aid will become a desktop app that will gather both Doctors and patients alike and help them communicate through one single platform. The entire system will constitute of the following 2 parts:

• A body area network (BAN) sensor
• Desktop Physio aid app

Roles of each part:

BAN sensor:

The Goal for the BAN sensor is to give readings that can be interpreted into useful information and be transferred to the desktop app. The sensor will be wrapped around the patient’s injured body part during exercise sessions. All of the readings generated will be converted into visual a piece of information to be sent to the doctor and the patient in real-time.

Desktop Physio Aid app:

The role of the desktop app can be broken down into 3 parts:

• Get the data/readings from the sensor
• Convert the readings into deducible/understandable form of information
• Show the information to both Doctor and Patient.

An in-depth look:

The app features:

Profile:

Both the Doctor and patient will have to register and create their profiles, to do this they will have to:

• sign-up using their email addresses along with a strong password.
• Two-factor authentication can be coupled to make it safer and secure.

One single Doctor can have many patients at a time, patients will have to choose their respective physiotherapist/Doctor after signing in the app.

Verification/Admin control:

The admin will be a third-party entity who will be purely responsible for managing the app. Of course, the app itself will not contain any features for a user to become an admin or take part in its control.

The admin will also be responsible for answering user queries and processing complaints.

Mode of communication:

The app will incorporate an open chat box to ease the mode of communication between the physiotherapist and patient where the Doctor can send private messages to each patient separately. This will also include an online call (video call) option where the Doctor can better guide the patient regarding any unprecedented complications.

How will the application work?

The challenge here is to convert the incoming data from the sensors into understandable and visual information. This visual information may pop-up to both the patient and the Doctor when the patient is not doing the exercise correctly. It may be a repetitive animation which displays the correct posture and form. The patient may send his Physiotherapist a quick message to getter better instructions.

Benefits of the Project

In a world where everything has become so tech-savvy, people do not want to partake in monotonous activities that can be done a lot quicker. Going to the Dr’s for a regular weekly check-up entails exactly that.

Apart from the monotonous nature of these activities, in countries like Pakistan, the expenses of travelling to the hospital mean a great deal for a lot of underprivileged families. Some families cannot afford to travel on weekly basis to far off hospitals from where they live. Plus, the check-up fee is also a daunting aspect for a lot of people, simply because it’s not affordable.

An online app that takes care of these issues will revolutionize the concept of physiotherapy for a lot of people. More than anything, this project will provide true public service to underprivileged people.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

The final deliverable of our system will consist of both Hardware and Software System.

The Hardware System will consist of a sensor, which will get input and using that will produce an output which shall be captured by the Computer System using IoT.

The Software will basically be a Desktop Application, that shall be capable enough to take input of the sensors and then manipulate it into producing a user-friendly representation of that. 

Final Deliverable of the Project HW/SW integrated systemCore Industry MedicalOther IndustriesCore Technology Internet of Things (IoT)Other Technologies Wearables and ImplantablesSustainable Development Goals Good Health and Well-Being for PeopleRequired Resources

Item Name	Type	No. of Units	Per Unit Cost (in Rs)	Total (in Rs)
			Total in (Rs)	69000
Kinect	Equipment	2	18000	36000
Accelerometer/Gyrometer Sensors	Equipment	6	2500	15000
Rasberry Pi 4	Equipment	1	18000	18000