Medical professionals will tell you that patient noncompliance is one of the main reasons treatments and medication don’t work as well as expected. Obviously, doctors have to depend patient reports to determine whether the patient is using a drug or other therapy correctly, and just as obviously, not every patient is going to tell the whole truth. This may be truer of orthotics than other medical disciplines. Most people figure they know how their feet work.
Now Sensoria, the smart socks company, has partnered with Orthotics Holdings, Inc., a world leader in orthotics, to develop the Smart Moore Balance Brace, which is intended to help prevent falls. Such a device is of particular use to patients over 65 for whom a simple fall might have far from simple consequences. (Wrist devices do not work well tracking activity of patients with limited mobility.)
The product is the marriage of Moore Balance Braces, developed to help older people with balance and stability issues, and Sensoria Fitness Socks, which use the company’s proprietary textile sensors and conductors to report foot strike and other pedal activity electronically. The sensors will be imbedded in the orthotic brace and report, via an app, whether a patient is correctly using the brace and such things as the kind and level of activity, time and gait speed.
In combo (and in theory), the two should work to make sure a patient is getting the best possible results from the orthotic and allow doctors to make informed decisions about adjustments and related therapies.
In short, your brace will be able to fink on you to your doctor, for your own good.
