A prototype measuring tool for patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis - a wearable data glove

Dr Kevin Curran at the University of Ulster is involved with colleagues from the Creative Arts, Computing & Engineering at the University of Ulster and Rheumatology department at Altngelvin hospital all of which have a vision and appreciation of how available and evolving technologies can be integrated to have a positive, direct impact on real clinical practice. The prototypes are being developed with insight from an active clinician in the field of Rheumatology. This facilitates direct measurement of the benefits and impact the prototypes could have in daily clinical practice.




We are firstly developing an initial working prototype of a tool which is being set up to assist medical clinicians with measuring the loss of movement in the human hand using a wearable data hand glove. We also intend to explore Wii tracking technologies and how these can be integrated with the data glove to deliver more precise positional data of key datum points of the hand, which will help us determine more accurate measurements. This has many direct applications within medical practice including diagnosis, prognosis and assessing the recovery of patients with conditions specific to the hand e.g. to measure how far a patient can close their fingers (with a flare up in arthritis patients may not be able to make a fist). Current measurement techniques available to clinicians are either invasive (x-rays) or rely heavily on manual evaluation such as vision and touch which is dependent on training and experience and results often vary between observers. Measuring tape is commonly used to measure distances e.g. between palm and fingertip which also leads to issues with accuracy, as well as patient self questionnaires which allow for interpretation.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• rheumatoid arthritis
• dataglove
• university of ulster
• kevin curran