Smart vest for posture monitoring in rehabilitation exercises

Rehabilitation at home has many advantages, both in terms of increased efficiency of health service and comfort for the patient. The monitoring of any human physiological parameters in home environment has the primary need to be non-invasive for the patient and at the same time motivating. This paper describes a wearable system for monitoring physiological posture during rehabilitation exercises to the spine in patients with mild scoliosis. The system can measure the posture of the subject through a sensorized T-shirt, which uses an inductive sensor. This article reports the conceptual framework and the description of the first fabricated device. The preliminary experimental results are reported and compared with the results obtained via an optical system that measures the position of markers over the patient's back. The instrumented T-shirt, integrated with an appropriate conditioning and transmission electronics, could be used as a remote support tool and as a feedback system for the identification of the patient's correct posture.