Ortho-Monitorizer: A Portable Device to Monitor the Use of Upper Limb Orthoses - A Concept Proof Raquel Gonc ¸alves 1 , Carla Quint˜ ao 1,2 , Ricardo Vig´ ario 1,2 and Cl´ audia Quaresma 1,2 1 Departamento de F´ ısica, Faculdade de Ciˆ encias e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal 2 LIBPhys - UNL, Faculdade de Ciˆ encias e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal Keywords: Rehabilitation, Orthoses, Monitorization, Temperature, Pressure, Compliance, Upper-limb, Wearable. Abstract: This article presents the development of a wearable and portable system, the Ortho-Monitorizer, which allows an objective, continuous and simultaneous monitoration of the temperature and pressure exerted on the skin on the 3 main pressure points derived from the use of a hand and wrist orthosis. It also allows the monitorization of the patient’s compliance to the orthosis, providing its time of use. This way, adjustments to the orthosis can be optimized, reducing the discomfort felt by the patient, increasing compliance, reducing the risk of pressure sores’ formation derived from inadequate levels of pressure applied, and consequently, increasing the effec- tiveness of orthosis’ use. Therefore, an Arduino Uno, powered by a powerbank, is used as microcontroller. Three force sensors and three temperature sensors are controlled by the microcontroller to detect the pressure and temperature. A Bluetooth Low Energy module is used to send data from the Arduino to an android appli- cation under development, which will allow healthcare professionals to consult all the information and clinical history relating to each patient, as well as allowing the patient to develop a greater awareness and sense of responsibility regarding their performance in relation to the guidelines provided by the health professional. 1 INTRODUCTION Wrist and hand orthoses have been used in hand injury recoveries, pain relieve and prevention of muscular disorders of chronic diseases, such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and stroke (Tan et al., 2020). Orthoses are support technologies that play an im- portant role and are recurrently used. These devices are generally produced using low-temperature ther- moplastics to be possible adapt them to each patient’s hand and they seek to act in limiting or promoting movement, positioning anatomical structures, pro- tecting body segments and reducing pain (Tan et al., 2020). The use of orthoses in patients is usually encour- aged to be as frequently as possible, normally for a long period of time depending on the injury. For ten- don injuries is approximately 4 to 6 weeks whereas for post-stroke patients is perhaps years, for exam- ple (Tan et al., 2020). However, currently, the study of its effectiveness is still insufficient (Pritchard et al., 2019), and it can even be said that studies in the field of rehabilitation need greater solidity, scope and a broad international consensus (Costa, 2019). One of the main reasons of low patient’s compli- ance is the discomfort experienced by patients, which leads to decreased effectiveness of hand and wrist orthoses and often to the formation of pressure ul- cers due to prolonged exposure to inadequate pressure (Tan et al., 2020). Thus, objective monitoring of patient adherence to orthosis, identification of pressure points and changes in tissue temperature are important areas of study and development in order to solve many of the challenges encountered in clinical practice, such as identifying and minimizing the excessive pressure exerted by the orthosis, as well as, identifying a potential tissue in- flammation by a local temperature increasing. This monitoring will also allow efficient orthosis’ adjust- ments, reducing the possible discomfort felt by the patient. Regarding the objective monitoring of patient’s compliance to orthosis, there are already some de- vices on the market that allow this monitoring, but none is designed for hand orthoses (Benish et al., 2012; Davies et al., 2020). Additionally, there are al- ready some studies that try to develop pressure and/or 94 Gonçalves, R., Quintão, C., Vigário, R. and Quaresma, C. Ortho-Monitorizer: A Portable Device to Monitor the Use of Upper Limb Orthoses - A Concept Proof. DOI: 10.5220/0011012000003123 In Proceedings of the 15th International Joint Conference on Biomedical Engineering Systems and Technologies (BIOSTEC 2022) - Volume 1: BIODEVICES, pages 94-101 ISBN: 978-989-758-552-4; ISSN: 2184-4305 Copyright c  2022 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved