The myofeedback-based teletreatment system and its evaluation

The myofeedback-based teletreatment system allows patients to receive tactile and/or visual feedback on muscle activity and muscle relaxation times. Health-care professionals can analyse muscle activity and muscle relaxation times and provide guidance to the patient on the course of treatment. The system was evaluated in a small clinical trial. Qualitative data were obtained by interviews and visual inspection of graphical patient data during the trial. Quantitative data were based on post-trial data analysis. We used a revised version of the information systems success model to evaluate the teletreatment system, and focused on the success categories of system use and user satisfaction. The evaluation found good input data quality, system quality and information quality. Both system use and user satisfaction were good. Thus the teletreatment system appears suitable for small scale clinical deployment. However, the sensory components suffered from heavy use and embedded software problems which made them unreliable. Large scale deployment requires improvement in terms of durability and reliability of the system's sensors.