September 4, 2008

Virtual rehabilitation: Wireless motion sensor to help treat that old football injury

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With the National Football League's season set to kick off tonight, stories about gridiron injuries are grabbing the headlines. Will quarterback Tom Brady start for the New England Patriots in their opening game Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs, after missing the entire preseason with an injured right foot? How will the Baltimore Ravens do now that their starting quarterback is out for the season with a shoulder injury and being replaced by a rookie? Should an NFL team have given former Pro Bowl quarterback Duante Culpepper, who announced his retirement today, a chance to play, or did his devastating knee injury in 2005 pose too much of a risk?

While sports injury diagnosis and rehabilitation have always involved a bit of guesswork, new technologies are expected to inject a bit more science into the process. Performance Health Technologies, Inc., for example, today announced a deal with Logic Product Development to improve the usability and design of Performance Health's Core:Tx wireless motion-sensing rehabilitation system. The technology works somewhat like Nintendo's Wii Fit in that it is able to track motion. A physical therapy patient or stroke victim wears a small, wireless sensor near the joint or muscle group being rehabilitated. Software guides the user through an exercise program, measures their range of motion and provides instant feedback on his or her rehab progress.

Performance Health designed Core:TX to be used by physical therapists to restore normal movement in patients with neuromuscular impairments resulting from trauma, medical conditions and neurological conditions, such as stroke and traumatic brain injury, according to the company's Web site. Logic's goal is to create a smaller and lighter version of the product that can read movement in multiple directions and be used for a more complex exercise program.

(Image courtesy of iStockphoto: Copyright: Majoros Laszlo)

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