Project description
Virtual physiotherapy for the elderly
Balance disorders in the ageing population are a global issue, impacting quality of life. Despite the benefits of physiotherapy to postural stability, there are no personalised coaching solutions available. To address this limitation, the EU-funded HOLOBALANCE project aims to develop an advanced balance telerehabilitation system. The platform will use holograms, augmented reality games, and easy-to-use sensors to deliver personalised exercises and real-time interactions. Intelligent algorithms will analyse data from individuals, monitor progress, and in collaboration with experts assist in activity planning to improve motivation and physiotherapy compliance. Overall, the HOLOBALANCE solution is expected to improve the physical and cognitive state of the elderly.
Objective
The overall objective of HOLOBALANCE is to develop and validate a new personalized hologram coach platform for virtual coaching, motivation and empowerment of the ageing population with balance disorders. The coaching part will be realised by holograms and augmented reality games, along with easy to use sensors (smart bracelet, smart glasses, sensorized soles) that can be customized to implement and coach the user with specific, individualized exercises, offering new forms of accessible user interaction. HOLOBALANCE will engage the experts related to the management of people suffering from balance disorders, including physiotherapists, Ear Nose Throat experts (ENTs), neurologists, psychologists, gerontologists, towards developing a multi-stakeholder user centered coaching ecosystem. Suggestions for specific exercises and tasks and an activity plan will be provided by the experts in a daily basis, which will be then refined and updated through autonomous learning algorithms. Three different types of coaching will be provided by the HOLOBALANCE platform: (i) balance physiotherapy (BP), (ii) cognitive training (CT) combined with auditory tasks (iii) multilevel motivation and physical activity (PA) promotion. The platform will consist of a cloud based big data analytics component, with intelligent data mining algorithms, that will assess personalized heterogeneous data (motion capture sensor data, wearable sensor data, physiotherapy exercises movement data, clinical profiles), emotional and behavioural data (through emotional computing and behavioural modeling minimizing attention theft) and provide personalized advice, guidance and follow up for motivation, goal setting, BP, CT and PA. The accuracy in performance of the exercises will be measured objectively in real time, through a set of motion capture and wearable sensors. Experts will monitor the status through a visual analytics expert panel.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinephysiotherapy
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencebig data
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencedata mining
- engineering and technologymaterials engineering
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
45110 Ioannina
Greece