Capturing Representative Hand Use at Home Using Egocentric Video in Individuals with Upper Limb Impairment

Impaired hand function after neurological injuries can have a major impact on independence and quality of life. Most existing upper limb assessments are carried out in person, which is not always indicative of hand use in the community. Novel approaches to capture hand function in daily life are required to measure the true impact of rehabilitation interventions. Egocentric video combined with computer vision for automated analysis has been proposed to evaluate hand use at home. However, there are limitations to the duration of continuous recordings. We present a protocol designed to ensure that the videos obtained are representative of daily routines while respecting participant privacy. A representative recording schedule is selected through a collaborative process between the researchers and participants, to ensure that the videos capture natural tasks and performance, while being useful for hand assessment. Use of the equipment and procedures is demonstrated to the participants. A total of 3 h of video recordings are scheduled over two weeks. To reduce privacy concerns, participants have full control to start and stop recordings, and the opportunity to edit the videos before returning them to the research team. Reminders are provided, as well as help calls and home visits if necessary. The protocol was tested with 9 stroke survivors and 14 individuals with cervical spinal cord injury. The videos obtained contained a variety of activities, such as meal preparation, dishwashing, and knitting. An average of 3.11 ± 0.98 h of video were obtained. The recording periods varied from 12-69 d, due to illness or unexpected events in some cases. Data was successfully obtained from twenty-two out of 23 participants, with 6 participants requiring assistance from the investigators during the home recording period. The protocol was effective for collecting videos that contained valuable information about hand function at home after neurological injuries.