Output details

Healthcare monitoring devices

The R&D and design work was commissioned by Tomorrow Options, a European medical technology company based in Porto, Portugal. The research explored the potential of wearable health monitoring technologies that overcome the challenges of capturing and communicating robust and accurate data while addressing the demanding contexts of simple operation and comfort during extended use. The research included product surveys, user needs analysis, ergonomic modelling, establishing stringent healthcare related design criteria, risk analysis, prototyping, user trials and testing. Initially predicated on providing clinicians with information about weight distribution and gait, the resulting products provide access to real world information enabling the accurate assessment of people with diabetic foot disorders.

The devices are marketed under the brand names ‘WalkinSense’ and ‘WalkinSense Sport’. WalkinSense, the lead product in the family, is a gait analysis electronic device providing quantitative and qualitative data of a user’s dynamic plantar pressure and activity. It was developed to allow the user free movement and to be monitored in real world situations in order to provide more robust data, and can measure plantar pressure activity simultaneously with video synchronisation. Further developments produced WalkinSense Sport for sports podiatrists, researchers, and personal trainers for orthotic assessment. A number of high-profile sports clubs have adopted this product, including Chelsea F.C.

A related development, ‘MovinSense’, is a unique tool to support patient repositioning routines in hospitals and nursing homes to reduce the risk of pressure induced sores. MovinSense won second prize in the Innovation2Care competition at the Expo 60+ 2013.

During the work, Tomorrow Options established a UK division of their business in Sheffield. The company confirms that one catalyst for this decision was to benefit from the research taking place in ADRC’s Lab4Living and Design Futures, the knowledge transfer unit of the ADRC (see city region and business reports in collected evidence).