SmartGaitTM team wins award to support commercialization of wearable gait assessment device.

The goal of SmartGait LLC is the development of SmartGaitTM, a device that has the ability to quickly and easily provide a balance and gait assessment in large cohorts in a cost-effective manner. Falls in older adults are pervasive, adversely impact health, and serve as the leading cause of injury-related death in the U.S. Thus, it is important to identify and apply interventions to those at greatest risk of falling. Fall risk can be identified by assessing an individual’s balance and gait. Current assessments require expensive equipment and highly trained personnel to assess balance and gait, such that these assessments are not available to the majority of the aging population. Balance and gait assessments can also provide a biomarker of ageing and disease, and can predict mortality. Impaired balance and gait will alert healthcare providers to initiate corrective/preventive measures.

The broad long-term objective for the proposed SBIR research is to develop and commercialize SmartGaitTM, a smartphone-based wearable device that can accurately measure balance and gait parameters. In Phase I, SmartGait LLC will optimize the balance and gait assessment platform (SmartGaitTM) such that it can operate in an accurate and robust manner in both indoor and outdoor environments. The hardware and software will be optimized to improve usability, marker detection and correction for trunk/camera motion. Passive and active markers will be assessed, with modifications to marker color, texture, and reflectivity. Following optimization, the device will be validated in a young healthy population for both indoor and outdoor activities. It is important to extend the device to outdoor environments, as free-living behavior will increase information when compared to walking and standing in a controlled environment. In Phase II, the device will be validated in two balance-compromised populations (older adults and people with Parkinson’s disease). Following validation, SmartGait LLC will establish that the balance and gait assessment can assess differences that result from age and disease by comparing three groups: young adults, older adults, and people with Parkinson’s disease. The differences observed across the three groups will demonstrate that SmartGaitTM provides a biomarker for age and disease. In addition, during Phase II, SmartGait LLC will develop a web-based portal that is HIPAA-compliant and allows healthcare practitioners to access patient information and generate data-driven reports within minutes from any web-capable device. Overall, SmartGaitTM has strong potential as a diagnostic and prognostic tool that can be utilized in large cohorts in a cost-effective manner. Identifying fall risk before a fall occurs is critical for timely deployment of preventive measures, but also so that limited resources can be allocated to those who are most likely to experience a fall. This, in turn, will ultimately reduce the number of falls.