Press Release – Immediate Release
Spectrum Health and Kinesis Health Technologies Partner to Deliver a New Falls Prevention Service in Ireland
- Falls Action to reduce falls in older adults in Ireland by up to 40%
Dublin, Ireland, 25 November 2014, Spectrum Health, Ireland’s largest allied health services provider, and Kinesis Health Technologies, a University College Dublin (UCD) medtech spin-out company, today announced a new partnership to deliver Falls Action, a comprehensive falls prevention service in Ireland.
Falls Action (www.falls.ie) will take a step-by-step proactive approach to identify individuals at risk of falling and facilitate early and targeted intervention though exercise and Chartered Physiotherapy which have been shown to reduce falls in older people by up to 40%.
Falls in older adults are a major problem in Ireland, with an estimated 30% of adults over 65 falling each year. Incidence rates in hospitals are higher, and in long-term care settings approximately 30–50% of residents fall each year. In Ireland alone it is estimated that the annual healthcare costs associated with falls is €500 million.
Using Kinesis’ breakthrough technology Kinesis QTUGTM, which has been shown to be more accurate than traditional methods in assessing risk of falls, Falls Action will offer a falls screening service. Falls Screen will provide an exact and quantitative evaluation of the many dimensions that make up a person’s propensity to trip and fall and will identify those at risk of falling.
These results will provide Falls Action’s specialised Chartered Physiotherapists with a detailed assessment of what elements should be addressed for individuals through Physiotherapy and exercise.
For those individuals classified in a risk category, Falls Action’s next step will be to provide a series of interventions, which may include exercise and Physiotherapy, to reduce the individual’s risk and minimise falls.
Dr Barry Greene, Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Kinesis Health Technologies said, “We are delighted to announce this partnership agreement and find a reputable and trustworthy partner to deliver such an important, but also an innovative service, in the Irish market.”
Anne McGoldrick, a Chartered Physiotherapist and Director of Medical Services, Spectrum Health said, “There is a significant problem with falls in older adults in Ireland and thanks to Kinesis we can take proactive steps to help ensure we see a significant drop in falls, particularly the injuries that occur as a result, in the Irish market over the next couple of years.”
Kinesis QTUG™, a Class I medical device, combines advanced technology, including body-worn sensors to assess falls risk and mobility impairment in older adults.
Kinesis QTUG™ has been scientifically validated through an extensive programme of top-tier internationally peer-reviewed research in Falls Prevention over the past seven years, with a dedicated research clinic set up in St James’s Hospital, Dublin, with more than 1300 assessments of older adults.
Kinesis is a spin-out of a large ageing research centre, the Technology Research for Independent Living (TRIL) Centre at University College Dublin. Kinesis Health Technologies was the overall winner of the 2013 UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Award.
Spectrum Health will be making significant contributions to the health sector through their new service with Kinesis, and will be starting a campaign to raise awareness of falls and the preventative measures that are available, along with locations that screening will be available.
ENDS
25 November 2014
For further information contact Micéal Whelan, Communications Manager (Innovation), University College Dublin, e: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie or t: +353 1 716 3712; Krishna Naidoo, Commercial Director, Spectrum Health, e: krish@spectrumhealth.ie; Seamus Small, CEO, Kinesis Health Technologies, e: info@kinesis.ie or Falls Action general enquiries, e: hello@falls.ie
Editors Notes
Spectrum Health is an Irish family owned company which provides private allied health services across Ireland. Spectrum Health is one part of the same company which has successfully provided Chartered Physiotherapy & Sports Injury clinics to Ireland since 2007, The Physio Company. www.spectrumhealth.ie
The Physio Company is the country’s largest Private Chartered Physiotherapy & Sports Injury provider, with 27 clinics in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Kildare, Kilkenny, Limerick, Waterford and Wexford. The success of The Physio Company has been used as a benchmark for Spectrum Health, recreating the same professional service levels and high standard of medical care for our patients.
Under the Spectrum Health brand they bring together other allied health services under their “one team, one referral” model. Spectrum Health have an excellent Clinical team of Speech & Language Therapists, Chartered Physiotherapists, Dieticians, Occupational Therapists, Chiropodists & Podiatrists and Psychologists. They believe that unless these practitioners all work together and as part of one team, care pathways for patients are less joined up than they should be. www.thephysiocompany.com/
Founded in 2013, Kinesis Health Technologies is an award-winning Irish health technology start-up company. Kinesis is a spin-out of University College Dublin and a large ageing research centre, the Technology Research for Independent Living (TRIL) Centre. Its proprietary technology has been validated as part of an extensive programme of top-tier internationally peer-reviewed research in Falls Prevention over the past 7 years.
Kinesis QTUG™, a patent protected Mobility and Falls Risk Assessment technology, is based on the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test. Patients are instrumented with body-worn sensors to provide a quantitative assessment of mobility. The technology provides an objective assessment of mobility, a statistical estimate of falls risk as well as identification of mobility impairment by comparison against a large reference population of older adults.
The system is a Class I medical device in the EU, US and Canada. It is intended for use by chartered physiotherapists, physicians or community care nurses in a supervised environment, such as a primary care facility. www.kinesis.ie