[Purpose] In this study, a program was developed for leg-strengthening exercises and
balance assessment using Microsoft Kinect. [Subjects and Methods] The program consists of
three leg-strengthening exercises (knee flexion, hip flexion, and hip extension) and the
one-leg standing test (OLST). The program recognizes the correct exercise posture by
comparison with the range of motion of the hip and knee joints and provides a number of
correct action examples to improve training. The program measures the duration of the OLST
and presents this as the balance-age. The accuracy of the program was analyzed using the
data of five male adults. [Results] In terms of the motion recognition accuracy, the
sensitivity and specificity were 95.3% and 100%, respectively. For the balance assessment,
the time measured using the existing method with a stopwatch had an absolute error of 0.37
sec. [Conclusion] The developed program can be used to enable users to conduct
leg-strengthening exercises and balance assessments at home.
Materials and methods participants. We recruited 31 healthy right-handed volunteers (17 men, 14 women, age range in 19-35 years old) with no history of neurological, physical, or psychiatric illnesses. The Edinburg Handedness Inventory (EIH) was used for the evaluation of handedness 36. The mean score on the EHI and mode were 80.93 (SD ± 16.67) and 100, respectively. Using 60 cutoff for the lateral quotient (LQ), the handedness was classified as the left-handed, the ambiguous, and the right-handed as ranged (− 100 to − 61), (− 60 to 60), and (60 to 100), respectively. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of DGIST (DGIST-170816-h-030-01), and all participants submitted the written informed consent prior to the study. The methods used in this study were performed in accordance with the guidelines approved by the mentioned IRB.
Compression garments are frequently used in daily life activities as well as in specialized fields, such as medical and sports sciences, to enhance bodily functions. However, conventional compression garments provide a fixed compression force to the body and can thus cause several side effects including discomfort, skin irritation, and loss of circulation when worn incorrectly. Development of a new type of compression garment that can control the compression force is required. This paper proposes a new sleeve-type compression garment that alters its compression force by employing a wire-fabric based mechanism. The proposed sleeve has several benefits compared with conventional methods. It not only is lightweight compared with those with pneumatic actuation but also can generate variable compression force by bidirectional driving of the tendons, which is not possible with other wire driving mechanism, such as shape memory alloy actuation. The proposed garment was manufactured by integrating two-layered fabrics with a soft pressure sensor, a wire actuation system, and a feedback controller. The performance was evaluated using three different experiments that tested the ability of varying and maintaining the compression force. This design can be employed in the field of compression garments and assistive devices to provide a means of applying an accurate and customized compression force to the body.
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