Capturing Representative Hand Use at Home Using Egocentric Video in Individuals with Upper Limb Impairment
December 23rd, 2020
A protocol is proposed to capture natural hand function of individuals with hand impairments during their daily routines using an egocentric camera. The goal of the protocol is to ensure that the recordings are representative of an individual's typical hand use during activities of daily living at home.
This protocol captures a representative daily routine of individuals with upper limb impairments using wearable cameras or egocentric videos. Its purpose is to evaluate and use at home for rehabilitation applications. The imaged hand use can help to evaluate the impact of new therapies in the home environments.
The protocol is designed to efficiently capture data representative of the user's daily life. The information obtained using this protocol can be used to evaluate the impact of rehabilitation, track progress over time or guide remote care. Good communications with participant is essential.
Ensure that they understand the importance of not changing their usual routine or the manner in which they perform tasks. Begin by asking the participant whether their affected hands impact their ability to carry out activities of daily living, or ADLs. Ask the participant to give some examples of tasks that they can and cannot perform independently with their affected hands.
Ask participants to recall their daily routines over the past two weeks. Document which daily tasks are performed, for how long, and at approximately what time. In collaboration with the participant, select three time slots of 90 minutes each, during which to record videos.
Select time slots that are spread over different days of the week and take place when ADLs involving the hands are typically carried out in sequence. Obtain agreement of the participant on the recording schedules after discussing any concerns that they may have. Set a goal of three hours of videos over two weeks and inform the participant that insufficient videos may lead to extending their recording periods.
Instruct the participant to focus on capturing realistic routines. Ensure that the participant understands that all recordings should take place inside their homes, not in public places. Give some examples that may raise privacy concerns, such as bathing, dressing and checking confidential information.
Remind the participant to be aware of mirrors, which may show their face in the recordings. Suggest that the participant avoids the presence of other people, such as family members or caregivers, as much as possible in the videos. Demonstrate how to use an egocentric camera.
Specifically, show the participant how to turn the camera on and off and how to control recordings. Ask the participant to practice turning the camera on and off, then to try to record from the camera. If applicable, demonstrate how to use a tablet with the pre-installed camera app.
Demonstrate how to turn the tablet on and off, how to connect the tablet to the camera through the camera app, and how to control the recordings. Ask the participant to practice the demonstrated steps. Then, show them how to review the recorded videos and how to trim or delete them.
Have the participant practice reviewing, trimming and deleting a recording from the tablet. Next, demonstrate how to don or doff the camera using an elastic headband adjustable to the participant's head. Place the camera on the participant's forehead and adjust the headband to wear the camera comfortably and steadily.
Ensure an optimal angle of the camera with respect to the forehead. Ask the participant to record a short segment of video while moving their hands in front of them and manipulating an object. Review the recorded video and ensure that the two hands are clearly visible in the central region of the scene while conducting manipulation tasks.
Practice the use of the camera and tablet with the participant and their caregivers until they demonstrate proficiency. Give the participant the kit with the equipment to record their ADLs at home. In addition to the camera and tablet, the kit should include extra camera batteries, battery chargers for both camera and tablet, charging cables, headband for the camera and a printed set of guidelines for using the camera.
A sample of 23 participants was recruited, including nine stroke survivors and 14 individuals with spinal cord injury. The proposed protocol was successful for 95.7%of the participants. Recorded activities included meal preparation, eating, dishwashing, physical activity and knitting.
The daily average video recording length per participant was 60 minutes, with an average of three hours of video obtained per participant. Some participants reported feeling tired and uncomfortable wearing the camera for over one hour, due to its weight and heat against the forehead. 27%of participants required assistance from the research team during the recording periods at home.
On average, each help call took five to 10 minutes. In addition, 15 caregivers of participants were involved in helping to record videos at home. Selecting the activities needs to be collaborative process between the researcher and participants to ensure that realistic, representative and meaningful routines are captured.
The data obtained from these videos can be used for automatic analysis, through computer vision and machine learning techniques to create new tools for tracking rehabilitation progress and outcomes.
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Overview
This protocol captures a representative daily routine of individuals with upper limb impairments using wearable cameras or egocentric videos. The goal is to evaluate hand function during daily activities at home for rehabilitation applications.
Key Study Components
Area of Science
- Neuroscience
- Rehabilitation
- Assistive Technology
Background
- Individuals with hand impairments often face challenges in daily activities.
- Understanding natural hand function is crucial for effective rehabilitation.
- Wearable cameras can provide insights into real-life hand use.
- Data collection in home environments can enhance therapy evaluation.
Purpose of Study
- To capture typical hand use in individuals with upper limb impairments.
- To evaluate the impact of rehabilitation therapies.
- To track progress over time in a natural setting.
Methods Used
- Use of egocentric cameras for data collection.
- Recording daily routines of participants.
- Engagement with participants for effective communication.
- Analysis of hand function in home environments.
Main Results
- Data collected reflects typical hand use during daily activities.
- Insights gained can inform rehabilitation strategies.
- Progress tracking is facilitated through continuous monitoring.
- Participant feedback is essential for protocol effectiveness.
Conclusions
- The protocol effectively captures natural hand function.
- It can guide remote care and rehabilitation applications.
- Future studies can build on this methodology for broader applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
Executive Industry Relevance
Capturing natural hand function in home environments addresses a critical gap in rehabilitation assessment, where clinic-based measures often fail to reflect real-world performance. This protocol enables biopharma R&D to evaluate therapeutic impact in ecologically valid settings, supporting go/no-go decisions based on functional outcomes that matter to patients and payers. By generating longitudinal, privacy-respecting behavioral data, it enhances predictive confidence in early-stage neurorehabilitation programs.
Strategic Applications in Biopharma R&D
Early Discovery & Target Validation
- Scientific Value: Enables interrogation of therapeutic hypotheses by measuring real-world hand use as a functional biomarker of neurological recovery.
- Operational Value: Supports target validation through objective, ecologically relevant endpoints that reduce reliance on surrogate clinic measures.
Screening & Assay Development
- Scientific Value: Prepares validated behavioral readouts for downstream screening of rehabilitative interventions by establishing baseline variability and sensitivity to change.
- Operational Value: Promotes assay standardization via structured recording schedules and participant-controlled privacy safeguards, improving data reproducibility across sites.
Translational & Preclinical Research
- Scientific Value: Bridges discovery and preclinical continuity by capturing disease-relevant hand function in spinal cord injury and stroke models, aligning with translational biomarker goals.
- Operational Value: Facilitates risk-adjusted advancement decisions by quantifying functional gains in naturalistic settings, reducing mechanistic ambiguity in preclinical-to-clinical translation.
Pipeline & Workflow Integration
The method fits within the discovery continuum from early target validation through preclinical efficacy testing, where functional hand use serves as a quantitative, patient-centered outcome to prioritize neurorehabilitation candidates.
- Discovery Biology: Supports hypothesis testing and pathway clarification by linking neural repair mechanisms to observable changes in daily hand manipulation tasks.
- Screening: Enhances assay readiness through standardized, repeatable video capture protocols that yield analyzable behavioral endpoints for compound or therapy comparison.
- Analytics: Generates quantitative dependent variables (e.g., hand use duration, task frequency, movement symmetry) enabling statistical comparison across conditions and time points.
- Translational Research: Connects to preclinical continuity by providing a disease-relevant system (stroke, spinal cord injury) where hand function correlates with independence and quality of life.
- Enterprise Reuse: Positions the protocol as a reusable platform for multi-site studies, leveraging participant training, equipment kits, and remote support to scale data collection across diverse neurological populations.
Operational & Enterprise Impact
- Scientific Value: Increases predictive confidence by reducing the gap between laboratory assessments and real-world functional outcomes in neurorehabilitation.
- Operational Value: Improves reproducibility and scalability through collaborative scheduling, privacy controls, and remote technical support, minimizing site variability.
- Strategic Value: Enhances capital efficiency by enabling earlier identification of ineffective therapies, reducing late-stage failure risk in neurorehabilitation pipelines.
- Portfolio Impact: Informs risk-adjusted prioritization by delivering functional outcome data that reflect meaningful patient experiences, supporting regulatory and reimbursement discussions.
Implementation Considerations
- Requires expertise in neurorehabilitation assessment, participant engagement, and wearable sensor deployment to ensure protocol adherence and data quality.
- Dependent on egocentric camera systems, tablets or smartphones for recording, and secure video transfer/storage infrastructure to support home-based data collection.
- Necessitates cross-team standardization between clinical, data science, and engineering teams to align on video collection schedules, privacy protocols, and analytical pipelines.
- Involves adaptation considerations across model systems, as recording schedules and task relevance must be customized for different neurological conditions (e.g., stroke vs. spinal cord injury) and severity levels.
- Includes practical limitations such as participant burden from prolonged wear, technical challenges in low-light environments, and the need for caregiver support in severely impaired individuals, all documented in the source.
