Time to exercise!: an aide-memoire stroke app for post-stroke arm rehabilitation

Abstract

A majority of Stroke survivors have an arm impairment (up to 80%), which persists over the long term (>12 months). Physiotherapy experts believe that a rehabilitation Aide-Memoire could help these patients [25]. Hence, we designed, with the input of physiotherapists, Stroke experts and former Stroke patients, the Aide-Memoire Stroke (AIMS) App to help them remember to exercise more frequently. We evaluated its use in a controlled field evaluation on a smartphone, tablet and smartwatch. Since one of the main features of the app is to remind Stroke survivors to exercise we also investigated reminder modalities (i.e., visual, vibrate, audio, speech). One key finding is that Stroke survivors opted for a combination of modalities to remind them to conduct their exercises. Also, Stroke survivors seem to prefer smartphones compared to other mobile devices due to their ease of use, usability, familiarity and being easier to handle with one arm.