A Simple Universal Biomechanics Monitoring System for Patients with Neuromusculoskeletal Conditions

Abstract

Neuromusculoskeletal conditions are a collection of diseases and disorders that impacts the bones, joints, muscles, and nerves. The disorders can result in muscular pain and fatigue, which can decrease the quality of life for patients. Many of the conditions do not have a cure and require a multidisciplinary approach for treatment. A specific regimen consisting of exercises, meditation, and diet can be given to promote rehabilitation in patients and mitigate certain causations factors; however, there is no simple, effective, and easy to use system for monitoring the biomechanical data of joints and muscles, or remotely monitor patient progress. We propose a system, called UniFlex, which is a simplified biomechanics monitoring system consisting of the following: one or two microcontrollers with an embedded IMU and Wi-Fi/Bluetooth connectivity, in which one of the microcontrollers can act as a fog layer for cloud connectivity, an IoT Cloud Service Platform such as IBMs' Bluemix, and a companion mobile application for monitoring muscular activity without the need of additional sensors like an EMG. The data analysis of the IMU signals were performed with MATLAB' Signal Analyzer App. Here we observed that muscular fatigue can be characterized by an increased frequency of oscillations. With this finding, we can further progress the UniFlex system to not only help rehabilitate patients, but to act as a mediium for early diagnosis.