Medical grade wearable IMU sensor for Neurorehabilitation

About the VIKTOR Method

The VIKTOR Method, developed by Dr Viktor Terekhov, uses innovative AFESK™ rehabilitation technology to treat the functionality and physiology of movement. The goal is to restore autonomous movement and enhance neuroplasticity processes in patients with severe neurological dysfunction as well as in all people with movement deficit, whether healthy or pathological, sedentary or athletes, of all ages.

VIKTOR is a manufacturer and seller of electro-medical equipment (for hospitals, clinics, physiotherapists, trainers, and sports technicians). Their team is dedicated to rehabilitating conditions with impaired CNS (central nervous system), age-related mobility problems as well as retraining and training in sports. Established in 2016, VIKTOR treats various forms of disability and fosters an improvement in the quality of life and the reduction of hospitalization costs for their patients. They aim to promote the standardization of methods (for rehabilitation of affected neuromuscular systems) and the personalization of protocols according to the pathology of each patient.

Challenges of the Project

This project is developed in the field of neurorehabilitation and athletic performance. This complex practice of medicine seeks to help patients recover from nervous system injuries. The need was to precisely monitor the movement cycle of patients to have perfectly synchronized nerve stimulation, a technique peculiar to the innovative VIKTOR AFESK (Adaptive Functional Electrical Stimulation Kinesitherapy) technology.

Miniaturization and ergonomics of the system were critical to the project as the sensor needs to be worn by the users without interfering with their motion or creating distress. Rehabilitation techniques require patients to be comfortable and not hindered by devices during their therapy. Therefore, the MUSE system was adopted and integrated to ensure maximum wearability while enabling data acquisition and accurate IMU sensor fusion.

Accuracy of the embedded AI algorithms was crucial to precisely recognize the instants of starting and ending of the exercise cyclic motion, as these inputs would be used as triggers for timing the electrical stimulation. Finally, being a wireless body sensor network, the latency of data transmission needed to be minimized.

Our Solution

221e’s miniaturized wearable wireless sensors and embedded AI algorithms could be coupled to create a system for monitoring and automating protocols in VIKTOR’s physiology neurorehabilitation practices. Also, having know-how on both the hardware and the data processing layers of the technology allowed us to perform a fine-tuning to maximize the performance of the wearable sensor for the specific application.

Using the Muse systems to control the pulses of electrostimulation based on VIKTOR’s clinical motion protocols, we developed a custom software library, giving incredible attention to the precision of the algorithms and usability of the system.

Inertial sensors and orientation estimation with our Motion Processing Engine were used as backbone technologies to autonomously recognize exercise cycles and provide a digital input to trigger muscular and nervous excitation.

Conclusion

Upon completion of the collaboration, 221e’s Muse was granted Class I Medical Device certification. With VIKTOR, we faced this pioneering challenge that represents a remarkable synthesis of wearable technology, TinyML, embedded AI and smooth design. We worked intensely in the complete creation of the system following the entire development, from prototyping to full production support.