Article

Telerehabilitation (TR) is getting ever more popular because it is effective in
bringing rehabilitation services to rural populations by means of audiovisual
systems and its initial implementation studies presented encouraging results. TR
is proven to be helpful, with benefits in terms of reduced travel time, cost, and
availability of specialists' support in local communities. However, TR systems
that are usable under low-bandwidth network environments are rare. This article
introduces the development of a TR system with customized consultation categories
for users to choose from, depending on requirements. Each category, with its
preset parameter values, is discussed in detail by demonstrating relevant
rehabilitation exercises. A novel bandwidth adaptation algorithm is also
presented for optimal utilization of the dynamic network conditions, which
ensures the system functionality even under narrow-bandwidth environments.
Experiment results show that the system is able to perform effectively in each
consultation category while the rehabilitation exercises are being performed. The
proposed algorithm is also verified for its ability to adapt the content quality
and effectively utilize the network under constrained conditions. A survey
conducted on the video quality of the system under low-bandwidth conditions shows
encouraging results for a large scale deployment of the application.

Langue : ANGLAIS