As the name implies, this “casebook” contains a series of clinical cases on various topics in orthopedic rehabilitation that the author encountered over his 23 years of practice ranging from the extremely common co- ditions like knee arthritis, to newer technologies evolved in the recent years including the use of smart materials in orthopedics, hypergravity stimulation therapy, and virtual reality. Many of us must have encountered difcult real life hurdles to - habilitation in real clinical practice in which patients have difculty in coming back for rehabilitation either because they live very far away, or they do not really have adequate time, or they simply only agree for home-based rehabilitation for various reasons. In these case scenarios, no matter how good a “protocol” one has on hand, it will be difcult to achieve the expected result. When the author was still young, he made the common mistake of accepting lesser outcomes from these patients saying to myself that it is a question of compliance. However, with large strides in computer engineering, even rural district patients can have acceptable rehabilitation as long as they have a telephone line and the right computer hardware and sofware and input-output devices to - fect tele-rehabilitation via the aid of virtual reality rather than just rel- y ing on video conferencing alone.
This book is a companion text to Orthopedic Rehabilitation, Assessment, and Enablement by the same author, but can be used independently.
Section 1 serves to illustrate through real-life examples the rehabilitation ideas and principles taught in the companion text, ranging from conditions seen daily by the orthopedic surgeon or primary care physician like knee and hip osteoarthritis or plantar fasciitis; through more challenging conditions like hamstring injury rehabilitation or heterotrophic ossification; to recent paradigm shifts in the management of osteoporosis and new technologies like vertebral fracture assessment using state-of-the-art DXA machines, hypergravity stimulation therapy, and many more.
In Section 2, the author introduces the reader to the vast number of applications of computers in orthopedic surgery, with special emphasis on the emerging importance of virtual reality in all aspects of orthopedics, ranging from pre-operative planning, pre-operative surgical practice on virtual patients, and virtual wayfinding and navigation; through intra-operative virtual bone structure modeling to enhance accuracy; to, most importantly, post-operative or non-operative rehabilitation of orthopedic conditions using these new computer techniques. The book ends by stressing the importance of telerehabilitation, an increasingly important tool for ensuring that even patients living in remote rural areas can have the chance to participate in rehabilitation guided by a therapist through the use of a virtual environment and teleconferencing.
