“The
software is patient centric,” Alyssa Rubino, the Medical and Dental
Product Manager at Tekscan, said during the exclusive interview with R&D Magazine.
“So the physician can enter a patient and save all the records to that
individual patient. When somebody comes in for their first visit they
are able to take a recording and get all sorts of information such as
temporal and spatial, as well as vertical force and plantar pressure.”
To use the system, a patient walks across a pressure sensitive
walkway, allowing the software to collect information about the user’s
gait, with key parameters displayed in graphs and tables. The system
also provides a symmetrical comparison between the left and right foot
strikes.
The biggest thing that Strideway provides is a detailed and
underlying look at gat abnormalities, inefficiencies and imbalances,
that otherwise would go undetected to the naked eye.
One of the features of the Strideway system is that users have the
ability to add length onto the platform to accommodate various patient
types or testing conditions. Podoloff said the market has shown the
desire for some researchers to test gait patterns with just a meter or
two of walking, while others want to view patterns from much longer
walking distances.
While the system can be useful for virtually anyone, Podoloff said it
is particularly beneficial for three target demographics—young
children, the elderly and athletes.
“With pediatric patients, they often can’t tell you what’s wrong or
what feels right,” he said. “With geriatric patients, you can see the
effectiveness of assistive devices like walkers and crutches.”
Podoloff also said athletes could use Strideway before and after
injurie, allowing team doctors and trainers to see data on the user’s
balance and pressure on the injured leg or foot.
This system could also aid doctors in gaining insight into concussion recovery using balance data.
Strideway can also help doctors fit patients for a prosthetic or a splint. Veterinarians could also use Strideway for pets.
Podoloff said the main advantage of Strideway is to give doctors and
clinicians the ability to quantify walking problems and injury recovery.
“Like a lot of things in nature and physiology, something is good
when it is even and balanced, so when something is not even and balanced
our system can detect that,” he said. “What the system really allows
you to do is to take this from being a qualitative assessment, just
looking at the patient, to now a quantitative assessment where you can
say oh look 60 percent of their weight is on the left side as opposed to
the right, so they are favoring that left side due to injury.”
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