Wearable therapist: sensing garments for supporting children improve posture

This paper introduces a sensing garment to support posture coaching in children. The system measures back bending postures using acceleration sensors embedded in the garment. We present a sensing garment architecture and the evaluation of garments of different sizes in a study with 21 children. A vision-based reference system was used to evaluate sensor positions and measurement accuracy for 54 back bending postures and related head positions. Then, we asked eight physiotherapists to rate the children’s back postures in this study. Ratings of experts correlated significantly with the back bending measurements obtained from the garment. The garment enables an objective assessment of back postures and could form the basis of a system that provides coaching feedback to improve postural control in children. Author Keywords Smart garments, SMASH, back posture, rehabilitation. ACM Classification Keywords J.3 Computer Applications: Life and medical sciences. General Terms Design, Experim...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: HUC
• Authors: Holger Harms, Oliver Amft, Gerhard Tröster, Mirjam Appert, Roland Müller, Andreas Meyer-Heim
• Keywords: Bending, Garment, Garment Architecture, HUC 2009, Human Computer Interaction