IoT-Based Physiotherapy Platform Driving 70% Reduction in Pain and Unneeded Surgeries

Summary

ScienceSoft helped AKLOS Health, an innovative healthcare startup, deliver a wearable-based physiotherapy platform with a mobile app and a web app. The apps use data from Xsens DOT wearable sensors to measure the motion range of patients’ joints and assess the therapy progress.

About AKLOS Health

The Customer is AKLOS Health, an innovative healthcare startup from Dallas. To address the drawbacks of the traditional physical rehabilitation process, the founders of AKLOS Health dedicated their efforts to creating a solution for fully personalized remote physiotherapy.

AKLOS Health founders decided to build a digital platform for physiotherapy exercises and progress tracking. They designed the care model that leverages the best aspects of offline and online rehabilitation. Initially, the therapist assesses the patient in-person, and later provides continuous online feedback and makes performance-based therapy program adjustments.

To create such an advanced solution, the Customer needed a seasoned healthcare IT consulting and development partner and turned to ScienceSoft’s team.

MVP Design and Development of Physiotherapy Platform

Eager to help AKLOS Health realize its groundbreaking idea, ScienceSoft assembled a project team comprising a project manager, a business analyst, a regulatory compliance consultant, a UX/UI designer, 2 Xamarin developers, 2 front-end developers, 4 back-end developers, and a QA engineer.

From the very start of the project, ScienceSoft’s team analyzed the market and the competitors, interviewed stakeholders, and studied patient needs. Based on the research, the team elicited requirements, as well as mapped out and prioritized the features. Then, ScienceSoft’s software engineers designed a HIPAA-compliant architecture of the platform.

To develop the MVP, ScienceSoft used the following technologies:

• AngularJS and NodeJS for the platform and a complementing web app for admins and therapists.
• Xamarin for the cross-platform patient mobile application.
• Amazon EC2 instances to run the solution’s back end and the web app.
• Amazon S3 buckets to store the media (videos and images illustrating the physiotherapy exercises).

Committed to ensuring the security of AKLOS Health’s product, ScienceSoft implemented encryption for the data stored locally and on AWS, and established data transfer through Secure Socket Layer (SSL).

Within just 6 months, AKLOS Health got a fully functional MVP of the physiotherapy solution and, after receiving user feedback, entrusted the software evolution to ScienceSoft.

Further Improvements: Unique Motion Sensor Algorithms

The platform uses Xsens DOT wearable sensors to measure the range of motion (ROM) of patients’ joints. Instead of using the default Xsens DOT motion capture algorithms, ScienceSoft offered to develop proprietary algorithms tailored to the specifics of knee joints and low back mobility to improve the accuracy of the ROM sensors.

With the unique algorithms developed by ScienceSoft, the app measures the ROM of patients’ joints, then compares it with the previous data and target data set by the therapists. Being able to see the latest sensor readings, the physical therapist can assess the patient’s progress and adjust their personal program to drive higher efficiency and avoid pain and potential injuries.

The project team improved the stability of motion sensor algorithms and overall application performance, adjusted the UI, and more. Further on, ScienceSoft perfected the solution’s performance by fixing issues related to:

• Sensor connection and data streaming stability.
• Patient orientation in space affecting the accuracy of the measurements.

Functionality for Patients and Therapists

To ensure individual approach to each patient’s rehabilitation, the solution covers the following features:

• An in-app personalized therapy plan for each patient created by physical therapists.
• Detailed exercise video instructions for patients.
• Patient progress reports (for patients and therapists) featuring data from the wearable ROM sensors, stage of therapy program completion, minutes spent exercising, number of completed exercise sessions, session history, etc.
• Instant text messaging between patients and therapists.
• Access to educational content on musculoskeletal therapy (e.g., articles, videos).

See the platform's live demo on AKLOS Health website.

Key Outcomes for the Customer

• Delivery of a ready-to-market MVP within 6 months and continuous evolution to meet the needs of patients and medical professionals.
• 71% pain reduction among the physiotherapy platform users.
• 70% reduction of unnecessary surgeries among the physiotherapy platform users.
• 52% reduction in medication consumption among the physiotherapy platform users.