Camera-Based Monitoring of Neck Movements for Cervical Rehabilitation Mobile Applications

Vision-based interfaces are used for monitoring human motion. In particular, camera-based head-trackers interpret the movement of the user’s head for interacting with devices. Neck pain is one of the most important musculoskeletal conditions in prevalence and years lived with disability. A common treatment is therapeutic exercise, which requires high motivation and adherence to treatment. In this work, we conduct an exploratory experiment to validate the use of a non-invasive camera-based head-tracker monitoring neck movements. We do it by means of an exergame for performing the rehabilitation exercises using a mobile device. The experiments performed in order to explore its feasibility were: (1) validate neck’s range of motion (ROM) that the camera-based head-tracker was able to detect; (2) ensure safety application in terms of neck ROM solicitation by the mobile application. Results not only confirmed safety, in terms of ROM requirements for different preset patient profiles, according with the safety parameters previously established, but also determined the effectiveness of the camera-based head-tracker to monitor the neck movements for rehabilitation purposes.