Abstract
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a common reason for human motor ability limitations caused before birth, through infancy or early childhood. Poor head control is one of the most important problems in children with level IV CP and level V CP, which can affect many aspects of children’s lives. The current visual assessment method for measuring head control ability and cervical range of motion (CROM) lacks accuracy and reliability. In this paper, a HeadUp system that is based on a low-cost, 9-axis, inertial measurement unit (IMU) is proposed to capture and evaluate the head control ability for children with CP. The proposed system wirelessly measures CROM in frontal, sagittal, and transverse planes during ordinary life activities. The system is designed to provide real-time, bidirectional communication with an Euler-based, sensor fusion algorithm (SFA) to estimate the head orientation and its control ability tracking. The experimental results for the proposed SFA show high accuracy in noise reduction with faster system response. The system is clinically tested on five typically developing children and five children with CP (age range: 2–5 years). The proposed HeadUp system can be implemented as a head control trainer in an entertaining way to motivate the child with CP to keep their head up.
Highlights
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of disorders in the developmental milestone, including posture and motor function, that become evident through infancy or early childhood [1,2].The CP prevalence ranges from 1.5 to more than 4 per 1000 live births
This paper presents a novel, inertial measurement unit (IMU)-based system for head control ability (HCA) tracking that targets children with CP aged from 2 to 5 years old
This study showed an investigation in applying an IMU-based system to capture active head movement and measure head control ability for young children with severe
Summary
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of disorders in the developmental milestone, including posture and motor function, that become evident through infancy or early childhood [1,2]. The CP prevalence ranges from 1.5 to more than 4 per 1000 live births. These statistics are expected to be much higher in developing countries due to low standards of medical care [3]. CP is permanent, its outcomes can be minimized [5]. These motor difficulties differ from one CP child to another CP child based on the severity level.
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