Kinesis Healthcare – Falls Reduction

I met with Seamus Small CEO of kinesis healthcare (Ireland) in my innovation lead role for CCICP. His company specialises in falls reduction and has a really cool solution.

Years ago, when the iPhone first came out – a GP colleague of mine suggested using the sensors in it to detect whether people were doing their tennis elbow exercises correctly. We actually created an app called iTennisElbow with a developer friend and had it on the app store for many years where it was downloaded all over the world. It used the built-in potentiometer and accelerometers in the phone to know where it was in space and gave haptic feedback to the user if they deviated from the correct trajectory. At the time we wondered what else it could be used for.

Seamus appears to have worked that out. He apparently won quite a lot of research money and working with a couple of academic departments has developed 2 sensors that have accelerometers and potentiometers in them that measure movement. They Bluetooth to an android tablet that reads their data. The devices are small and fit into pockets in a Velcro wrap around support that are worn for the exam below the knee on each leg for the duration of the test.

The test is based on a standard assessment of starting in a sitting position, get up walk turn and return with a sit. Not only does it time this but its capable of producing all sorts of metrics based on how the test is performed.

We saw a demo and were blown away. It was dead easy to setup and run and the results produced were almost instant and really informative.

You can use it as a screening tool. Set a threshold and anyone above it is at high risk and needs some form of intervention and this screening could effectively be done by anyone. Or put it in the hands of a skilled therapist and it provides all sorts of data on which parts to work on with the patient and can be used to measure improvement.

The price seems great too!