AN INTELLIGENT REMOTE EXERGAME SYSTEM FOR KNEE OSTEOARTHRITIS REHABILITATION TRAINING

Guangjun Wang^{1, 2, 3}, Yi Fan³, Ming Wu⁴, Xin Jin⁵, Hanyuan Zhang^{1, 2, 5}, Liangliang Yao³, Yining Sun^{1, 2}, Benyue Su³, Zuchang Ma^{1, 2, *,}

¹Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Medical Physics and Technology, Institute of Intelligent Machines, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China - ²Science Island Branch of Graduate School, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China - ³The University Key Laboratory of Intelligent Perception and Computing of Anhui Province, Anqing Normal University, Anqing 246013, China - ⁴Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Hefei 230036, China - ⁵The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine University of Science and Technology of China Hefei, Anhui, 230001, China

Exercise therapy is a specialized and long-term process, and home exercise is an essential approach to treating knee osteoarthritis (KOA). We propose an intelligent remote exercise game system to assist the patients with correct and effective rehabilitation training. This system includes the knee assessment, the Kinect-based exergame, the system server, and the Web program. The physical therapist gives the patient an exercise prescription that specifies the patient's exercise tasks at home through the knee assessment. The exercise tasks are transformed into game tasks through the exergame, and the patient is guided to perform the exercise tasks correctly. The Kinect is used to obtain real-time joint position data of the KOA patient and calculate the joint movement angle to determine whether the patient has completed the exercise movements required by the exercise task. Exercise data is recorded for the patient's exercise and transferred to the system server for the physical therapist to view. The physical therapist reviews the patient's exercise data by the Web program, then evaluates the exercise and provides feedback to adjust the exercise prescription. The system allows the KOA patient to perform the rehabilitation exercises at home enjoyable and allows the physical therapist to achieve remote process evaluation and rehabilitation guidance. This approach can improve the effectiveness of KOA rehabilitation training and reduce the burden of traditional hospital follow-up visits.