Design of a Range of Motion Sensor for Ankle Rehabilitation Monitor By

ii The purpose of this project is to design a convenient and cost-effective way for a physiotherapist or other health-care professional to quantitatively measure progress in the rehabilitation of a patient’s range of motion in their injured ankle in a clinical setting. Ankle injuries are one of the most common types of athletic injuries and can severely affect performance and daily functioning and proper rehabilitation is frequently necessary to recoup diminished proprioception and range of motion in the joint. Currently, no fast, cost-effective, and convenient quantitative method of tracking a patient’s improvement in range of motion in a clinical setting is available. This project attempts to accomplish this result using two bend sensing resistors embedded in an ankle sleeve along the anterior and lateral sides. These sensors have a variable resistance, which changes for each sensor when the ankle moves in plantarflexion/dorsiflexion and in inversion/eversion. The sensors are attached to a voltage divider circuit that outputs two voltages that vary relative to the changes in resistance of each sensor. The output voltages are converted t