Physical fatigue detection through EMG wearables and subjective user reports: a machine learning approach towards adaptive rehabilitation

Abstract

Physical fatigue due to muscle exhaustion is a symptom that can be very common in daily life. However fatigue can sometimes be suspect of more severe diseases such as multiple sclerosis and needs to be assessed appropriately. Despite the need to monitor fatigue, describing it in an objective and quantifiable manner is still an open problem due to the great levels of subjectivity involved. In this work we propose a novel method towards detecting physical fatigue. We design our approach based on objective EMG measurements and we aim to identify the presence of physical fatigue based on subjective user-reports. Based on our analysis we highlight the significance of our findings and we discuss how machine learning based modeling can become useful towards understanding fatigue and designing adaptive rehabilitation scenarios.