(PRESS RELEASE) SAN DIEGO, CA — The American Academy of Optometry annual meeting celebrating its 100th year anniversary, Sensoria Health and Padula Rehabilitation Technologies announced their collaboration to develop NeurOpTrek, the first and only truly wearable solution for Risk of Fall (ROF) assessment to monitor, prevent, and rehabilitate patients from fall injuries. Sensoria Health is the leading developer of wearable Remote Patient Monitoring and Artificial Intelligence solutions and Padula Rehabilitation Technologies is the creator of unique medical instruments for the diagnosis and rehabilitation of visual dysfunction.
See patient video here.
Statistics show that one in four adults over the age of 65 falls and suffers an injury each year. In the U.S. alone, 37 million people seek medical treatment annually for a fall related injury at a cost of $56 billion. According to Padula’s published research studies, Visual Midline Shift Syndrome (VMSS) often affects the Center of Mass (COM) of patients, negatively impacting balance and posture, and increasing risk of fall.
The new wearable NeurOpTrek system will collect gait-related data, which will then be analyzed in near real-time in order to maximize the patient’s vision potential and enable him or her to improve posture and balance through a set of custom designed yoked prism lenses to treat VMSS and other challenging conditions. In addition to providing balance data, NeurOpTrek will also provide COM data and double support time. With NeurOpTrek, clinicians will no longer need expensive gait systems, they only need Sensoria smart socks, the NeurOpTrek app, and a tablet. This partnership combines the unique capabilities of these two industry innovators.
For the last year, in collaboration with Padula Rehabilitation Technologies, Sensoria Health has been focused on designing and developing the first wearable Risk of Falls (ROF) assessment system. The Sensoria textile pressure sensor-infused smart socks are designed from the ground up to improve balance and posture for people with high risk of fall. This system will be used by simply having the patient wear a sensor infused sock and walk a few steps in front of a clinician with a tablet application. In fact, NeurOpTrek will feature not only the Sensoria smart socks, but also a dedicated app on an Android tablet and proprietary algorithms that analyze a patient’s gait to determine their midline shift, providing data to the clinician to help inform and generate the appropriate prescription yoked prism lenses to reduce the risk of falls. The solution will help clinicians assess patient balance and posture and may reduce ROF by monitoring improvement and facilitating inter-professional interaction between physical therapists, neuro-optometrists, and physicians in rehabilitation centers and online.
The mission of Padula, together with Sensoria, is to develop an easy to use, patient focused, truly wearable system for the assessment and correction of visual dysfunction, affecting posture, gait, balance, and visual field loss often associated with aging or traumatic neurological accidents. NeurOpTrek can be used for ROF prevention and rehab from traumatic brain injury, Cerebral Palsy, MS, concussion, chronic fatigue, and more. For many years, Dr. William Padula, President of Padula Rehabilitation Technologies, lived in constant frustration due to the lack of solutions that could help his patients in the ophthalmology field of rehabilitation. He was unable to provide direct treatment options to improve patient’s balance and reduce their risk of falls.
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“We all wake up, take a shower and get dressed. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to deliver and wear ‘smart apparel’ as part of our normal daily life and gather meaningful data that can help both clinicians and our patients? That idea will soon become a reality with NeurOpTrek,” said Dr. Padula.
“We are very excited to work with the esteemed Dr. Padula on this challenging research and development project to develop this innovative solution utilizing our Sensoria socks and new gait algorithms that we are developing. Our joint work will improve people’s lives and may reduce risk of falls,” said Davide Vigano, CEO and co-founder of Sensoria Health.
NeurOpTrek is a finalist in The American Academy of Optometry Foundation (AAOF) inaugural BRIGHT IDEAS Pitch Competition, with winners to be announced at the show. The competition is designed to provide recognition, mentoring, and monetary reward to new or early-stage entrepreneurs with an idea or innovation that will improve eyecare treatment or devices. For more information, see here and here.
