Sensoria Inc. has partnered with the world’s leading orthotics company to deliver the first ever IoT orthotic device. Together with Orthotics Holdings, Inc. (OHI), Sensoria will debut and demo the new Smart Moore Balance Brace at Health 2.0—a global conference for healthcare technologies.
The Smart Moore Balance Brace is an internet connected version of the Moore Balance Brace (MBB), a medical device which launched in 2010. The foot and ankle support was designed to help reduce the risk of falls in the elderly by improving balance and stability for its wearers, and is now getting a smart update to help clinicians monitor their patients’ adherence, activity levels and gait parameters.
The Smart Moore Balance Brace
“Most wrist worn wearable devices cannot accurately detect activity of elderly people with limited mobility. Therefore caregivers have limited visibility to patients’ activities outside of the clinic, where most of the time is spent,” said Davide Vigano, CEO and co-founder of Sensoria. “By embedding our proprietary textile sensors into this fall prevention device, clinicians can now gain access to patients’ activity level and improve care delivery.”
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, more than 14 million American adults aged 65 or older, experience a fall each year. That’s over 30% of the same overall population. An independent study has shown balance improvements with the use of the MBB, however, until now, there has been no effective way for doctors to track if their patients are using the device as prescribed. With the implementation of Sensoria’s technology, the Smart MBB powered by Sensoria can detect patient adherence along with activity type, activity level, cadence, time on the ground, and gait speed.
Smart Moore Balance Brace’s analytics platform by way of an accompanying app
“One of our main goals at OHI is to innovate and bring new solutions to our healthcare partners so they can achieve optimal patient outcomes,” said Jason Kraus, President and COO of OHI. “We are so excited to bring an IoT-enabled orthotic to the market and we hope this will be the first of many successful product developments with Sensoria.”
Along with the sensors embedded into the device, Sensoria provides a Bluetooth-enabled anklet that easily snaps to the MBB, and relays collected data to a mobile app and web dashboard where both the clinician and patient can track results. The device is currently undergoing market studies, and is expected to be available in 2016.
