A Plantar Pressure Biofeedback M-Health System for Stroke Patients

Neuro-rehabilitation is a key treatment for motor skills recovery after a cerebrovascular stroke. Based on the level and size of the brain lesion, different degrees of motor impairment could arise. A typical problem of post-stroke patients is an alteration in the upright stance balance on the feet. For patients with mild to moderate impairment, home rehabilitation could provide substantial benefits in terms of functional recovery, without the discomfort and costs associated with a conventional rehabilitation in a care center. This work presents the development of a wearable m-health solution for biofeedback provisioning to the patient in balance recovery exercises. By exploiting two FSR-sensorized insoles and a custom readout electronics, an Android app can provide visual biofeedback and simple exergame to help the patient in the recovery of a correct distribution of plantar pressure. A test performed on ten healthy subjects reveals that the proposed system provides a reasonable distribution of the plantar pressure according to the current knowledge in the field. The proposed solution can be easily integrated into a software framework for home telerehabilitation.