A smart textile sleeve for rehabilitation of knee injuries

Abstract

A tear of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) is a severe knee injury that requires up to a year of rehabilitation. Patients sustaining an ACL injury perform rehabilitation exercises mostly at home unsupervised. Orthopedists meet patients at time intervals as long as three months and lack quantitative ways to measure and keep track of the rehabilitation progress of each patient during these intervals. We present KneeHapp, a smart bandage and sock to support and keep track of the rehabilitation progress after an ACL injury. KneeHapp measures the quality of different ACL rehabilitation exercises and provides feedback to patients and orthopedists. We describe in detail how we constructed KneeHapp making use of smart textile technologies and provide insight into its software and quality of its measurements.