Characteristics and Classification of Physiotherapy Skills in Experts and Novices Using Self-Organizing Maps

The training of physiotherapists requires instruction based on experience and takes a long time to become proficient. One reason is that objective skill measures have not been established, making training difficult. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to classify novices and experts and to identify their characteristics. This study used muscle deformation sensor arrays to capture muscle bulging and determine muscle force. The experiment incorporated a range of motion exercises from physiotherapy as the task. The mean, standard deviation, maximum, and minimum values of the left and right forearm muscle deformations obtained during this physiotherapy were used as features and analyzed using Self-organizing maps. Most experts were classified into groups with low muscle force and variability during the task. This group also included a certain number of novices. The results of this study suggest an indicator in the transfer of physiotherapy skills and as an aid in teaching skill transfer.