The Dublin City University spin-out GaitKeeper app is now operation in eight institutions across Dublin and is being used in a variety of clinical services including falls assessments and stroke rehabilitation.
The system has processed over half a million assessments across participating facilities in the last two years.
GaitKeeper uses artificial intelligence (AI) and augmented reality (AR) to standardise gait speed assessments. Using a video recorded on a smart phone, the software captures measurements at more than 20 anatomical sites, 60 times per second.
It provides basic measurements such as speed, stride, steps, support bases, and step events as well as advanced measurements including joint angle, centre of mass, swing and symmetry. According to GaitKeeper, these measurements have been shown to be accurate indicators of falls risk and frailty.
At Tallaght University Hospital (TUH), the software is being used in the falls clinic, the acute medical unit and the Charlie O’Toole age-related care unit.
It is also being studied as a tool to diagnosis early Alzheimer’s disease and to measure disease progression in people with Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and arthritis.
The app is also operational at the Royal Hospital Donnybrook where it is being applied in the stroke rehabilitation service and day hospital.
In addition, the software is being incorporated into two large research studies. Precision ALS is a €10 million research programme focused on motor neuron disease. involving researchers at the SFI Research Centres ADAPT and FutureNeuro along with the TRICALS Consortium, Europe’s largest ALS research initiative.
The research is being carried out by nine research centres across Europe, including Trinity College Dublin. GaitKeeper is being used to understand the mobility aspects of the disease as it progresses.
The app has also been incorporated into the Intellectual Disability Supplement to the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (IDS-TILDA). The study, the first of its kind in Europe, aims to identify the principal influences on successful ageing in persons with intellectual disability, and then determine if these are the same as those seen the general population.
At present, the app is being applied in clinical setting but co-founder and CEO of parent company Digital Gait Labs, Aidan Boran, has aspirations to establish itself within the home care setting.
“Up to now you would typically bring a patient into a falls clinic, perhaps run them across the gold standard, the GAITRite pressure map system, or more sophisticated 3D camera systems,” Mr Boran said.
“One of the great things about GaitKeeper is that it’s a digital technology, so it follows the patient. Anyone can run this test anywhere at any time.”
He said the app could be valuable as part of the integrated care programmes.
“The key feature for the home is that you can’t guarantee a good quality broadband connection so we are developing an offline version which does exactly the same thing, but the clinician brings the device back to the facility and it is uploaded there,” he said.
He added that the company has already prototyped a standalone device that sits in the patient’s home and conducts opportunistic gait assessments via a WiFi-connected camera.
Mr Boran said integrated care is “probably one of the biggest application areas” for GaitKeeper and the company certainly has “both and appetite and a desire to engage”.
