Range of Motion Sensors for Monitoring Recovery of Total Knee Arthroplasty

TL;DR

This paper presents a low-cost, accurate accelerometer-based device for monitoring knee range of motion post-arthroplasty, enabling safe at-home recovery and reducing healthcare costs.

Contribution

It introduces a novel accelerometer-based ROM sensor integrated into surgical dressings, demonstrating comparable accuracy to computer vision methods for post-operative monitoring.

Findings

Accurately measures knee ROM during stationary and walking conditions.

Potential to reduce hospital visits by enabling at-home recovery.

Affordable design suitable for widespread use.

Abstract

A low-cost, accurate device to measure and record knee range of motion (ROM) is of the essential need to improve confidence in at-home rehabilitation. It is to reduce hospital stay duration and overall medical cost after Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA) procedures. The shift in Medicare funding from pay-as-you-go to the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) has created a push towards at-home care over extended hospital stays. It has heavily affected TKA patients, who typically undergo physical therapy at the clinic after the procedure to ensure full recovery of ROM. In this paper, we use accelerometers to create a ROM sensor that can be integrated into the post-operative surgical dressing, so that the cost of the sensors can be included in the bundled payments. In this paper, we demonstrate the efficacy of our method in comparison to the baseline computer vision method. Our results suggest that calculating angular displacement from accelerometer sensors demonstrates accurate ROM recordings under both stationary and walking conditions. The device would keep track of angle measurements and alert the patient when certain angle thresholds have been crossed, allowing patients to recover safely at home instead of going to multiple physical therapy sessions. The affordability of our sensor makes it more accessible to patients in need.