Cast fixation is a general clinical skill used for the treatment of fractures. However, it may cause many complications due to careless treatment procedures. Currently, swathing a cast for a patient can only be determined by a doctors’ experience; however, this cannot be determined by the value of pressure, temperature, or humidity with objective and reliable equipment. When swathing a cast for a patient, the end result is often too tight or too loose. Hence, in this paper we developed a sensor for detecting pressure, temperature, and humidity, respectively. This could provide reliable reference cast data to help physicians to understand the tightness of cast swathing and to adjust the tightness of cast swathing instantly to alleviate a patient’s complications caused by excessive pressure or overheating. In this paper, six pressure sensors and one temperature–humidity sensor are used to detect the pressure, temperature, and humidity in an arm swathed with a cast to confirm whether the tightness of the cast is fixing the fracture efficiently, while avoiding causing any damage by using excessive pressure. Currently, the variation in temperature and humidity can be detected by the inflammation of the wound, displaying secretions, and fever in the cast. Based on the experiments, the voltage and power conversion coefficients of the developed sensors could be compensated for by the nonlinear error of the sensor. The experimental results could be instantly displayed on a human interface, such as a smart mobile device. The average skin pressure in a swathed cast was 12.14 g and ranged from 5.0 g to 17.5 g. A few casts exceeded 37.50 g. The abnormal pressure of wrinkles produced during swathing a cast often ranged from 22.50 g to 38.75 g. This shows that cast wrinkles cause pressure on the skin. The pressure caused by cast wrinkles on bone protrusions ranged from 56.5 g to 84.4 g. Compared to other parts that lacked soft skin cushioning, the pressure of cast wrinkles that occurred in the ulna near the protrusion of the wrist bone increased averagely. The pressure error value was less than 2%, the temperature error was less than 1%, and the humidity error was less than 5%. Therefore, they were all in line with the specifications of commercially available products. The six pressure detection points and one temperature and humidity detection point in our newly designed system can accurately measure the pressure, temperature, and humidity inside the cast, and instantly display the corresponding information by mobile APP. Doctors receive reliable reference data and are instantly able to understand the tightness of the swathed cast and adjust it at any time to avoid complications caused by pressure or overheating due to excessive pressure.

In this study, we developed a range of motion sensing system (ROMSS) to simulate the function of the elbow joint, with errors less than 0.76 degrees and 0.87 degrees in static and dynamic verification by the swinging and angle recognition modules, respectively. In the simulation process, the ɣ correlation coefficient of the Pearson difference between the ROMSS and the universal goniometer was 0.90, the standard deviations of the general goniometer measurements were between ±2 degrees and ±2.6 degrees, and the standard deviations between the ROMSS measurements were between ±0.5 degrees and ±1.6 degrees. With the ROMSS, a cloud database was also established; the data measured by the sensor could be uploaded to the cloud database in real-time to provide timely patient information for healthcare professionals. We also developed a mobile app for smartphones to enable patients and healthcare providers to easily trace the data in real-time. Historical data sets with joint activity angles could be retrieved to observe the progress or effectiveness of disease recovery so the quality of care could be properly assessed and maintained.

In order to ameliorate the anterior knee pain or peripheral pain around the tibia caused by patellar lateral subluxation, we evaluated the kick training effects of standing or sitting postures in strengthening the vastus medialis obliquus (VMO) on the quadriceps femoris muscle. A total of 83 subjects (45 male; 38 female) in both sitting and standing positions performed 10° to 90° leg lift and kick training. Among the male group, the effect of the sitting posture was better than that of the standing posture, 74.31% of the former achieved the training goal. In the female group, the effect of a standing posture was better than that of a sitting posture, for which only 37.71% of the latter achieved the training purpose. However, a ratio of 84.34% in the female group showed that the strength of VMO on the quadriceps femoris muscle generated by leg kicking was greater than the strength generated by walking. While it was impossible to immediately achieve a greater effect of VMO on the quadriceps femoris muscle than vastus lateralis on the quadriceps femoris muscle, leg kicking did achieve the objective of enhancing the strength of VMO on the quadriceps femoris muscle.