A partnership forged between Intel-GE Care Innovations and Kinesis Health Technologies, a medical device company, will result in the marketing and distribution of QTUG, a mobility and falls risk assessment technology. According to a joint news release from the two companies, the partnership is intended to assist the healthcare and older adult living communities in more proactively and aggressively preventing falls.
Quantitative Timed Up and Go (QTUG) is reportedly based on 7 years of clinical data and is built to allow both clinicians and health plans to effectively evaluate the therapy services rendered and understand when more or less therapy may be needed. QTUG is designed for use by healthcare professionals who assess fall risks in older adults, such as fall specialists within hospitals and community-based care nurses to help eliminate falls for residents.
The release notes that the technology is engineered to provide an exact, quantitative evaluation of the multiple dimensions that can comprise the risk for trips or falls, and offers the clinicians a detailed assessment of what elements need to be addressed through therapy. The QTUG system uses body-worn tri-axial gyroscopes and accelerometers applied to each leg and combined with signal processing and machine learning methods to provide a quantitative assessment of mobility and falls risk, as well as statistical comparisons against a large reference population relative to norms for age and gender. The collected data is then streamed wirelessly via Bluetooth to a touch screen tablet device that displays the calculated results.
Sean Slovenski, CEO, Care Innovations, points out, “Falls are a major cause of injury and hospitalization, especially among older Americans. I believe our partnership with Kinesis Health Technologies will bring physical therapists and other clinicians a superior method of determining an individual’s risk for falling, and provide the necessary support and information in order to intervene and reduce that risk.”
Seamus Small, CEO, Kinesis Health Technologies, adds that direct and indirect costs of falls to society are “enormous.”
“However,” Small says, “many falls are avoidable, so more effective preventative measures can have a big impact on improving quality of life and reducing financial costs linked to falls.”
The release also reports that QTUG can be used to assess a patient’s response to therapy on an ongoing basis.
[Source(s): Intel-GE Care Innovations, Kinesis Health Technologies]
