Quantifying eating behavior with a smart plate in patients with arm impairment after stroke
Mertes G., Ding L., Chen W., Hallez H., Jia J., Vanrumste B.
Upper limb motor impairment after stroke has been linked with reduced food intake and affected patients are at risk for malnutrition. The inability to consume food is often proportional to the severity of impairment. Being able to measure the effect of impairment on food intake can lead to additional insights in eating behavior of patients after stroke. In this paper, we propose the use of a smart plate containing weight sensors to extract eating behavior related parameters from individual bites during meals. Data was recorded with the smart plate from 6 patients that had difficulty eating due to impaired arm movement following a stroke. The results indicate that parameters such as bite size and pickup time can be linked to the patient's eating behavior and level of impairment.