Objectives of the service
In Germany, musculoskeletal diseases account for more than 20% of all sick days, while 40% of all individuals are chronically impaired. And so far, there is no effective monitoring and support system to guide remote physiotherapy exercises. Patients thus have therapy time that is too short, high treatment costs, and low motivation, and half of the rehabilitation processes are left incomplete. KINFINITY offers a smart bandage solution to relieve and support physiotherapists and motivate patients to regularly carry out their exercises at home. KINFINITY’s simBa enables remote physiotherapy treatment, no matter where the patients are. It is highly personalized, reduces costs, and motivates the patient for their therapy, resulting in an improved quality of life.
Users and their needs
KINFINITY’s user segment is divided into four groups: Sports tech enthusiasts, physiotherapists, patients, and health insurance companies, in Germany and Europe.
Sports tech enthusiasts need a rehabilitation solution that allows them to perform recovery exercises without the need for an in-person consultation.
COVID-19 greatly contributed to physiotherapy being offered online. As far as online physiotherapists are concerned, they need a solution that helps accurately monitor the movements of patients and track them regularly without having to consult them physically. On the other hand, offline physiotherapists are looking for a solution that helps track the progress of patients performing home exercises and gives them feedback without having to be always present.
Health insurance companies need a solution that helps them enable faster recovery of the patients while ensuring full recovery to avoid reinjuries and keep the costs for recovery low.
Patients, i.e., people who have been prescribed physiotherapy or those living in remote areas, need a solution that can accurately track and monitor their home recovery exercises without the necessity to always go to their physical therapist’s office personally.
Service/ system concept
simBa includes the smart bandage as well as the KINFINITY app as the central point of the physiotherapy ecosystem, which uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to track the motion of the patient in real-time.
During physiotherapy sessions with the therapist, patients wear KINFINITY’s smart bandage, which automatically learns the ideal path of required movements and the patient's individual anatomy. The bandage connects to the patient's smartphone, enabling real-time monitoring of movements at home. The advanced AI algorithms of the KINFINITY app compare the executed movement with the referenced one during physiotherapy sessions and provide real-time feedback on incorrect movements. Furthermore, new exercises can be recorded directly by the physiotherapist, like recording an audio track; record -> make the movement -> stop. This allows a lot of flexibility for the patient.
The recorded data from each session is presented to the user in a comprehensible manner, along with an evaluation of its quality. This data can also be directly sent to the physiotherapist, enabling a real-time assessment of the patient's exercises and suggestions for improvements without physical contact.
Space Added Value
A majority of KINFINITY’s team members are former employees of the German Aerospace Center Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics. As a Human Spaceflight technology, they developed sensors to track the motions of astronauts during their space flight to control robots from afar to allow teleoperation of robots from space on the surface of the ground (for example, the moon, Mars), which enables complex technical tasks to be performed on the surface while keeping astronauts safe in the orbit.
This same technology that is used in these space operations is used in KINFINITY’s simBa. The stringent quality and reliability requirements of the space sector ensure that simBa’s sensors are always delivering the most accurate results and capturing the movements of the user with no error. Currently, there exists no solution in the physiotherapy industry that utilizes technology with such stringent quality requirements in its products. With these novel sensors, KINFINITY brings technology from space back to Earth!
Current Status
KINFINITY successfully completed a 9-month clinical trial with SESCAM hospital in Spain and the result of the study was higher adherence of the patients to the exercise regime, low errors when performing the exercises, and improved range of motion (ROM). KINFINITY is also in negotiations with a medical technology company for a potential collaboration focusing on knee rehabilitation. KINFINITY also has 3 signed letters of intent from 2 physiotherapists based in Germany and France.
