Path Feel - a therapeutic wearable to reduce comorbidities in diabetes and improve quality of life

With With Path(WWP)是一家健康科技公司，旨在赋予和帮助患有慢性行动不便的人。2014年，我们推出了Path Finder，这是一种医疗设备，可以缓解帕金森氏症患者的步态冻结，在欧洲、加拿大和澳大利亚上市。我们现在正在发布我们的第二款医疗设备Path Feel，这是一种智能鞋垫动力系统，帮助人们改善平衡并降低糖尿病足溃疡(DFU)的风险。在英国约450万糖尿病患者中，约25%(112.5万人)将发展成DFU。其中三分之一无法痊愈，三分之一会导致截肢，随后死亡率显著上升。DFU也是纳税人的一项重大支出，因为它们每年消耗NHS预算的近1%。目前的护理标准要求定期去诊所进行足部评估；频率取决于风险水平(每周至每年)。这是对临床医生和患者时间的巨大浪费，也是无效的--高截肢率就是明证。我们的智能鞋垫Path Feel是这个问题的颠覆性解决方案。它结合了对高危患者的DFU检测和预防，并减少了需要DFU干预的病例的延迟转诊。Path Feel通过嵌入鞋垫的离散传感器实时捕获温度、压力和步态指标数据。此外，它的触觉反馈可以防止患有周围神经病的人摔倒。我们正在向Innovate UK申请贷款，以使这种智能鞋垫产品更坚固，更多功能，制造成本更低。拟议的项目涉及后期研发，需要根据用户反馈改进产品的硬件、软件和数据分析方面，并使NHS更负担得起。作为该项目的一部分，我们将进行临床研究，以开发我们第二次迭代的Path Feel，结合人工智能分析。我们的目标是提供一种以用户为中心的无形和直观的解决方案，在降低医疗成本的同时提高人们的生活质量和独立性。我们的解决方案将解决周围神经病患者跌倒风险增加的潜在感觉丧失问题，预防DFU，并具有广泛的其他应用，作为与活动障碍相关的任何研究的鞋中实验室。

Walk With Path (WWP) is a health tech company which aims to empower and help people with chronic mobility conditions. In 2014 we launched Path Finder, a medical device alleviating freezing of gait in people with Parkinson's, commercially available in Europe, Canada and Australia. We are now working on the release of our second medical device, Path Feel, a smart insole-powered system helping people improve their balance and reduce the risk of diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs).Of the c.4.5 million people with diabetes in the UK around 25% (1.125 million) will develop a DFU. A third of them don't heal, and a third lead to amputations which are followed by significantly increased mortality rates. DFUs are also a significant expense for the taxpayer, as they annually consume nearly 1% of the NHS budget.The current standard of care requires periodic clinic visits for foot assessments; the frequency depends on risk level (weekly to annually). This is a massive waste of both clinician and patient time as well as being ineffective - as evidenced by the high rates of amputations.Path Feel, our smart insole, is a disruptive solution to this problem. It combines DFU detection and prevention for high risk patients, and reduces late referral for cases who require DFU intervention. Path Feel captures temperature, pressure and gait metrics data in real-time via discrete sensors embedded in the insoles. In addition, its haptic feedback prevents falls in individuals with peripheral neuropathy.We are requesting a loan from Innovate UK to make the smart insole product more robust, more versatile and cheaper to manufacture. The proposed project involves late-stage R&D entailing improving the hardware, software and data analysis aspects of the product based on user feedback as well as making it more affordable for the NHS. As part of this project we will conduct clinical research to develop our second iteration of Path Feel incorporating AI analytics.We aim to deliver an invisible and intuitive user-centred solution that increases people's quality of life and independence whilst reducing healthcare costs. Our solution will tackle the sensory loss underlying increased fall risk in those with peripheral neuropathy, prevent DFUs and have a wide range of other applications as a lab-in-a-shoe for any studies associated with mobility disorders.