PLENARY II: Can Data Collected Using Wearable and mHealth Technologies Result in Improvements in Rehabilitation Outcomes?

Presenter

Paolo Bonato, PhD 
Associate Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Harvard Medical School

Session Description

This lecture will provide a critical review of how wearable and mhealth technologies are transforming the field of rehabilitation. We will show how data collected using these technologies in the clinic and in the home and community settings can be utilized to derive estimates of clinical outcomes that would otherwise require the administration of lengthy assessment procedures. Then, we will discuss how these estimates could be utilized to design and implement patient-specific rehabilitation interventions. Finally, we will discuss how we envision that the field of rehabilitation will leverage data collected using wearable and mhealth technologies to deliver better clinical outcomes.

Learning Objectives

• • Describe how wearable and mhealth technologies can be utilized to derive estimates of clinical outcome measures and design patient-specific interventions
  • Have basic knowledge concerning available technologies, including how to choose the wearable and mhealth systems that are most suitable for the problem at hand
  • Have a basic understanding of the machine learning algorithms utilized to analyze data collected using wearable and mhealth technologies
  • Describe ways wearable and mhealth technologies will affect clinical practice in the years to come

About the Presenter

Paolo Bonato, PhD, serves as Director of the Motion Analysis Laboratory at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston MA. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School, an Adjunct Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the MGH Institute of Health Professions, an Associate Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Boston University College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences. He has held Adjunct Faculty positions at MIT, the University of Ireland Galway, and the University of Melbourne. His research work is focused on the development of rehabilitation technologies with special emphasis on wearable technology and robotics. Dr. Bonato served as the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Journal on NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation. He serves as a Member of the Advisory Board of the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics and as Associate Editor of the IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine. He recently took the position of Founding Editor-in-Chief of the newly established IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology. Dr. Bonato served as an Elected Member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBS) AdCom (2007-2010) and as IEEE EMBS Vice President for Publications (2013-2016). He also served as President of the International Society of Electrophysiology and Kinesiology (2008-2010). He received the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy in 1989 and the Ph.D. degree in biomedical engineering from Universita` di Roma “La Sapienza” in 1995.