Tele-rehabilitation booming with Kinect

At a panel discussion at the American Telemedicine Association trade show, Dr. Kouroush Parsapour said that physical therapy in the United States is approaching crisis, so much so that by 2030, the number of states with sub-standard physical therapy will increase from 12 to 48. With this in mind he created 5plus Therapy, a startup that works on building digital health physical therapy tools. At 5plus Therapy, Parsapour uses Microsoft’s Kinect to measure a patient’s movement, a task that he had previously performed with a goniometer. Parsapour is not alone. A number of tele-rehabilitation startup companies nationwide are using the Kinect. Reflexion Health, has started clinical trials to validate the technology. Reflexion offers a rehab measurement tool that uses Kinect to instruct the patient on exercises and measure whether they are performing their exercises correctly. MobiHealthNews has a list of nine companies that are using digital rehabilitation solutions, all of which use or plan to use the Microsoft Kinect. Microsoft Kinect can be used for rehab, weightlifting, medical record review, death mask creation, tracking workers and identifying car defects. Last week I wrote about how video games may be able to help improve 3D vision in adults with lazy eye. In that blog I mentioned how I was never a fan of video games, but with all of the good they are capable of, should I give them a second chance?