Mirrorcle:Enhanced visual feedback to support motor learning in low back pain

About 60 to 90% of the population has experienced low back pain (LBP) once in their life; yearly this is 5% of the population. Non specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) is LBP without a specific cause that lasts longer than twelve weeks. Research has shown that exercise therapy is the most effective rehabilitation method; and can be enhanced by technological systems. This knowledge served as a base for the development of Mirrorcle. Mirrorcle is an interactive mirror that provides a set of exercises, designed for persons suffering from NSCLBP. By giving extrinsic feedback during and after the exercises, Mirrorcle enables patients to perform their exercises better and learn more from them. Five physiotherapists rated the credibility for the use of Mirrorcle in rehabilitation as high and the expectancy for good treatment results as moderate. A usability questionnaire and observation was done with one LBP patient. During this test, the usability of Mirrorcle was perceived positive.</p

How did you sleep?: Exploring by-proxy sleep assessment in a field study setup

Objectives/Introduction: Sleep is crucial for both mental and physical health, and sleep disorders can pose a severe burden on health‐related quality of life. Importantly, family members may be affected by each other's sleep and wake behavior. Finally, there may be differences in sleep perception between family members. As a tool for future studies, we designed a concept for ‘By‐Proxy Sleep Assessment’, namely, the rating of one's partner's or children's sleep quality. This might provide a useful additional sleep quality measure, especially when assessing people with difficulties reporting their own sleep, such as children and people with intellectual disabilities or dementia. Methods: We used data from the FieldLab study, created to collect data on sleep and sleep related behaviors in five households, using an IoT ecosystem to combine subjective and objective information from connected objects measuring variables such as sleep, physical activity and environmental factors. A chat application enabled communication between researchers and participants and qualitative data was obtained through means of questionnaires and scheduled chatbot messages. Participants were asked to rate subjective sleep quality as well as the sleep quality of their partners and children on a scale of 0 to 10 each morning. Results: A total of 143 nights of partner By‐Proxy Sleep Assessment were collected from three couples and 40 nights of By‐Proxy Sleep Assessment for children from two couples. Subject‐proxy differences were averaged over the study period and varied between −0.38 ± 1.32 (−3 ‐ +2) and 1.23 ± 1.30 (−1 ‐ +3) for partners and −0.11 ± 0.97 (−3 ‐ +2) and 0.61 ± 1.50 (−1 ‐ +4) for children/parents. Preliminary analysis of IoT data and qualitative measurements through the chatbot revealed that both internal (e.g. migraines) and external factors (e.g. room temperature) contribute to discrepancies in sleep quality assessment by a proxy. Conclusions: Experience sampling studies can offer a new perspective on sleep quality and sleep perception. Although the By‐Proxy Sleep Assessment ratings already correlated rather well with the subjects’ own ratings, the IoT data may aid in improving the reliability of this approach

Mirrorcle: Enhanced visual feedback to support motor learning in low back pain

About 60 to 90% of the population has experienced low back pain (LBP) once in their life; yearly this is 5% of the population. Non specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) is LBP without a specific cause that lasts longer than twelve weeks. Research has shown that exercise therapy is the most effective rehabilitation method; and can be enhanced by technological systems. This knowledge served as a base for the development of Mirrorcle. Mirrorcle is an interactive mirror that provides a set of exercises, designed for persons suffering from NSCLBP. By giving extrinsic feedback during and after the exercises, Mirrorcle enables patients to perform their exercises better and learn more from them. Five physiotherapists rated the credibility for the use of Mirrorcle in rehabilitation as high and the expectancy for good treatment results as moderate. A usability questionnaire and observation was done with one LBP patient. During this test, the usability of Mirrorcle was perceived positive