Researchers say they’ve achieved a trifecta on a new app that captures users’ motion data: it’s cheaper than other devices, works faster and requires only the use of a smartphone.
OpenCap, like many new tools, uses artificial intelligence to help interpret video footage of a user’s muscle and joint movements and subsequently generate health diagnostics.
The ability to capture data on movement is very important for older adults, many of whom either have chronic conditions that limit their mobility or have temporary difficulties while rehabbing.
New technology within long-term care that can track residents’ motion or behavior has largely been aimed at predicting and preventing fall emergencies.
Beyond acute medical concerns, it has become useful for clinicians and caregivers to track older adults’ physical activity to ensure that they are staying healthy.
Using some kind of analytics on seniors’ physical activity helps fill gaps in clinical diagnoses by doing things such as measuring steps while they are walking down a hallway, another recent study showed.
OpenCap works 25 times faster than laboratory-setting body or motion analysis techniques, such as sensors, the researchers stated.
“By democratizing access to human movement analysis, OpenCap can accelerate the incorporation of biomechanical metrics into large-scale research studies, clinical trials and clinical practice,” they said.
The initial study, which only involved healthy individuals, did not indicate how the speed or quality of data from OpenCap compared with new sensor technology many senior living communities or nursing facilities have installed, although the ability to glean meaningful information from a smartphone app promises to be more scalable and cost-effective than a proprietary sensor system.
OpenCap’s development was funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study authors also noted that the type of data the app can collect on nuanced muscle and joint movements is more sophisticated than a lot of sensor systems.
