Recent technological advancements have enabled the creation of portable, low-cost, and unobtrusive sensors with tremendous potential to alter the clinical practice of rehabilitation. The application of wearable sensors to movement tracking has emerged as a promising paradigm to enhance the care provided to patients with neurological or musculoskeletal conditions. These sensors enable quantification of motor behavior across disparate patient populations and emerging research shows their potential for identifying motor biomarkers, differentiating between restitution and compensation motor recovery mechanisms, remote monitoring, tele-rehabilitation, and robotics. Moreover, the big data recorded across these applications serve as a pathway to personalized and precision medicine. This paper presents state-of-the-art and next generation wearable movement sensors, ranging from inertial measurement units to soft sensors. An overview of clinical applications is presented across a wide spectrum of conditions that have potential to benefit from wearable sensors, including stroke, movement disorders, knee osteoarthritis, and running injuries. Complementary applications enabled by next-generation sensors that will enable point-of-care monitoring of neural activity and muscle dynamics during movement are also discussed.

Purpose: Adults with bilateral vestibular hypofunction (BVH) experience significant disability. A systematic review assessed evidence for vestibular rehabilitation (VR). Number of studies: 14 studies. Materials/methods: Search identification of studies based on inclusion criteria: (a) population: adults with BVH of peripheral origin; (b) interventions: vestibular exercises, balance training, education, or sensory prosthetics; (c) comparison: single interventions or compared to another psychophysical intervention, placebo, or healthy population; (d) outcomes: based on International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) Body Functions and Structure, Activity, and Participation; (e) study designs: prospective and interventional, Levels of Evidence I to III per Centre of Evidence-based Medicine grading. Coding and appraisal based on ICF framework and strength of evidence synthesis. Results: Five Level II studies and nine Level III studies: All had outcomes on gaze and postural stability, five with outcomes on gait speed and perceptions of oscillopsia and disequilibrium. Conclusions: (a) Moderate evidence strength on improved gaze and postural stability (ICF-Body Functions) following exercise-based VR; (b) Inadequate number of studies supporting benefit of VR on ICF-Participation outcomes; (c) Sensory prosthetics in early phase of development. Clinical relevance: Moderate evidence strength in support of VR from an impairment level; clinical practice and research needed to explore interventions extending to ICF-Activity and Participation.

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