Use of MoTrack Therapy in At-Home Hand Rehabilitation

Compliance of patients to their prescribed at-home exercises is a large issue. To many
patients, the exercises are seen as mundane and boring, decreasing the motivation of patients
to complete their exercises. However, even when patients do complete their exercises,
patients may have difficulty knowing whether the participants are doing their at-home
exercises correctly and to the right amount. After leaving his or her therapist's office, the
patient usually has nothing more than a written handout, if anything, to guide them through
their at-home exercises. Especially since range of motion and pain levels can change daily,
it is difficult to expect the patient to consistently do his or her exercises every time,
much less to do them correctly. Ineffective exercises and / or a lack of compliance can lead
to setbacks, complications, or even expensive and painful repeat surgeries. And at the
therapist's office, the therapist may have trouble telling whether setbacks or lack of
progress is because of lack of compliance, ineffective exercises, or an underlying medical
problem.

Advances in technology have made it possible to track the hands of patients suffering from
hand and wrist medical conditions as patients do their at-home exercises. Furthermore, this
data can be analyzed in real-time to determine if and how the patient is doing his or her
exercises. Another advantage of tracking the hand is that the therapy exercises can be
incorporated into a fun computer game that motivates the patient to actually complete their
therapy. The hypothesis is that having a computer and accompanying sensors track the hand to
give real-time feedback, monitor improvements over time, and gamify the therapy experience to
motivate the patient will improve the standard of care given to patients. If this hypothesis
is true, patients will understand their exercises better, be inclined to do them more often,
and thus have better outcomes. Not only will patients benefit, but the therapist's job will
be easier as well. The therapist will have quantitative data to help distinguish medical
issues from exercise issues. Ideally, a very successful trial would even suggest a
possibility for the patient to rely less on the therapist for the at-home exercises, giving
the therapist time to focus on more difficult cases. This research therefore is important
because the problems with at-home therapy may be mitigated or solved with such an aid.

INCLUSION CRITERIA

- Participants with hand and wrist conditions that require at-home exercises of
wrist/finger movements, including dorsiflexion, palmar flexion, radial deviation,
ulnar deviation, supination, pronation, thumb adduction, etc.

- Participants who have fractures and similar conditions as the cause of the problem

- Participants must be able to give their own consent.

EXCLUSION CRITERIA

- Pregnant women

- Participants not fluent in English

- Participants below the age of 18

- Participants institutionalized or incarcerated

- Participants who's hand condition is primarily nerve-related as opposed to being
caused by a fracture or similar condition