Use of MoTrack Therapy in At-Home Hand Rehabilitation

NCT ID: NCT03345693

Last Updated: 2021-03-16

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 19 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2017-11-10
• Study Completion Date: 2020-06-11

Brief Summary

This study focuses on the use of a specific type of at-home hand rehabilitation software, MoTrack Therapy, in improving the treatment of hand and wrist injuries.

Detailed Description

Compliance of patients to their prescribed at-home exercises is a large issue. To many patients, the exercises are seen as mundane and boring, decreasing the motivation of patients to complete their exercises. However, even when patients do complete their exercises, patients may have difficulty knowing whether the participants are doing their at-home exercises correctly and to the right amount. After leaving his or her therapist's office, the patient usually has nothing more than a written handout, if anything, to guide them through their at-home exercises. Especially since range of motion and pain levels can change daily, it is difficult to expect the patient to consistently do his or her exercises every time, much less to do them correctly. Ineffective exercises and / or a lack of compliance can lead to setbacks, complications, or even expensive and painful repeat surgeries. And at the therapist's office, the therapist may have trouble telling whether setbacks or lack of progress is because of lack of compliance, ineffective exercises, or an underlying medical problem.

Advances in technology have made it possible to track the hands of patients suffering from hand and wrist medical conditions as patients do their at-home exercises. Furthermore, this data can be analyzed in real-time to determine if and how the patient is doing his or her exercises. Another advantage of tracking the hand is that the therapy exercises can be incorporated into a fun computer game that motivates the patient to actually complete their therapy. The hypothesis is that having a computer and accompanying sensors track the hand to give real-time feedback, monitor improvements over time, and gamify the therapy experience to motivate the patient will improve the standard of care given to patients. If this hypothesis is true, patients will understand their exercises better, be inclined to do them more often, and thus have better outcomes. Not only will patients benefit, but the therapist's job will be easier as well. The therapist will have quantitative data to help distinguish medical issues from exercise issues. Ideally, a very successful trial would even suggest a possibility for the patient to rely less on the therapist for the at-home exercises, giving the therapist time to focus on more difficult cases. This research therefore is important because the problems with at-home therapy may be mitigated or solved with such an aid.

Conditions

Hand Injuries

Study Design

• Allocation Method: NA
• Intervention Model: SINGLE_GROUP
• Primary Study Purpose: DEVICE_FEASIBILITY
• Blinding Strategy: NONE

Study Groups

Treated with MoTrack Therapy

Patients receive the MoTrack Therapy device to assist them in their at-home therapy exercises. The patient is instructed to use the MoTrack Therapy device when they want to do their at-home therapy exercises. The patients therapy in the clinic is not affected.

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

MoTrack Therapy

Intervention Type: DEVICE

A software that runs on a tablet or computer that reads information from a Universal Serial Bus external sensor and instructs patients in their exercises, giving patients feedback as necessary, and recording patient progress and activity.

Interventions

MoTrack Therapy

A software that runs on a tablet or computer that reads information from a Universal Serial Bus external sensor and instructs patients in their exercises, giving patients feedback as necessary, and recording patient progress and activity.

Intervention Type: DEVICE

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Participants with hand and wrist conditions that require at-home exercises of wrist/finger movements, including dorsiflexion, palmar flexion, radial deviation, ulnar deviation, supination, pronation, thumb adduction, etc.
• Participants who have fractures and similar conditions as the cause of the problem
• Participants must be able to give their own consent.

Exclusion Criteria

• Pregnant women
• Participants not fluent in English
• Participants below the age of 18
• Participants institutionalized or incarcerated
• Participants who's hand condition is primarily nerve-related as opposed to being caused by a fracture or similar condition

• Minimum Eligible Age: 18 Years
• Eligible Sex: ALL
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Sponsors

Johns Hopkins University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Responsibility Role: SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

Scott S Lifchez, MD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Johns Hopkins University

Locations

Johns Hopkins Medicine

Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Countries

United States

Other Identifiers

IRB00106559

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id