MyoSock - Measuring muscle health in healthy ageing

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The ISCF Healthy Ageing Follow on Fund 2023 is part of the Healthy Ageing Catalyst Award programme, funded by the UKRI Healthy Ageing Challenge and in collaboration with the US National Academy of Medicine's (NAM) Healthy Longevity Global Grand Challenge. With Zinc's programme of support, the Follow on Funding will be used to build upon previous Healthy Ageing Catalyst Award funding, with the aim of commercialising research in a wearable device to measure age-related changes in muscle health. Muscle wasting affects 2% of the population - about 156 million people world-wide. A decrease in muscle tissue reduces the force necessary to perform movements such as walking. This may result in decreased mobility which impacts quality of life and increases falls risk. As the population ages, sarcopenia (age-related muscle wasting) will affect a projected 18-32 million Europeans by 2045. Health care costs directly associated with muscle weakness and sarcopenia were estimated to be £2.5 billion in the UK in 2016. Sarcopenia is a progressive muscle disease and loss of muscle starts as early as the fourth decade of life. Skeletal muscle, the largest organ in the body, is involved with many other functions, other than movement, through the release of a type of hormone called myokine. These myokines have an effect on, for example, cognitive function, obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Muscle wasting is present in a diverse range of illnesses and conditions such as diabetes, cancer, liver disease, alcoholism and prolonged bed rest. Assessing the health of the muscular system and developing appropriate interventions is therefore essential for advancing healthy ageing, longevity, and quality of life. However, there is no reliable non-invasive, low-cost method of measuring muscle health. Muscle activity can be recorded by measuring the small electrical potentials transmitted from muscles to the skin, known as electromyography (EMG). Muscle volume can be measured using ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging. However, muscle health is not just a measure of the amount of electrical activity within a muscle, or how large the muscle is, but also how activity and volume are linked to functional performance. There is therefore an urgent need to develop a device that can measure muscle health using multiple types of sensors. This project aims to develop a low cost, simple to use smart sock with embedded sensors and associated software for measuring muscle health.