Quantification of home rehabilitation exercise for the elder's physical fitness monitoring

Aging brings about evident degeneration of musculoskeletal fitness and decline of functional independence of senior elders. Regular physical activity had been irrefutably evidenced to prevent the deterioration of chronic diseases and improve the physical fitness for the elders. However, the doubt remains on the health benefits and the dose-response relation of physical activity due to a lack of effective quantification method on the quantity measurement of physical activity. Recent technological advancements have made various ways of sensor monitoring possible for the elder's physical fitness. In this paper, we proposed a homecare sensory system that assesses the elder's physical fitness through quantifying their home rehabilitation exercises. The proposed sensory system used a triaxial accelerometer to collect the motion acceleration and transmitted the data through a pre-deployed ZigBee wireless personal area networks (WPAN) in the home environment. The signal pattern is analyzed and quantified by the proposed method. Through the quantification method for the senior adults, we attempted to crate useful indicators on evaluating the activity level of the elders and provide appropriate exercise advises for better health administration.