Total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is the most common treatment for degenerative osteoarthritis of that articulation. However, either in rehabilitation clinics or in hospital wards, the knee range of motion (ROM) can currently only be assessed using a goniometer. In order to provide continuous and objective measurements of knee ROM, we propose the use of wearable inertial sensors to record the knee ROM during the recovery progress. Digitalized and objective data can assist the surgeons to control the recovery status and flexibly adjust rehabilitation programs during the early acute inpatient stage. The more knee flexion ROM regained during the early inpatient period, the better the long-term knee recovery will be and the sooner early discharge can be achieved. The results of this work show that the proposed wearable sensor approach can provide an alternative for continuous monitoring and objective assessment of knee ROM recovery progress for TKA patients compared to the traditional goniometer measurements.

Falls are one of the most common adverse events in hospitals and fall management remains a major challenge in the medical care quality. Falls in patients are associated with major health complications that can result in health decline and increased medical care cost. To deliver medical care in time, reliable location-aware fall detection is needed. In this paper, we propose a patient alert alarm for fall management. It is ZigBee-based location awareness fall detection system that provides immediate position information to the caregivers as soon as the fall happened. Obviously, the integration of location awareness and fall detection technologies fulfills the requirements of delivering critical information to relative professions and improve the medical care quality.