Toward a “Clinic-in-a-Box”: An Inexpensive Integrated Toolkit for Assessing Balance, Mobility and Cognition in the Frail and Elderly

Award Date: 2018

Project Lead(s): Shirley Fenton, Research Associate

Project Title: Toward a “Clinic-in-a-Box”: An Inexpensive Integrated Toolkit for Assessing Balance, Mobility and Cognition in the Frail and Elderly

This toolkit, consisting of three accelerometers, a tablet computer and our app, forms the basis for a “clinic-in-a-box” for measuring balance, mobility and cognition in the frail and elderly. This platform, which builds on previous work funded by CABHI’s Spark program, is an extension of a toolkit already developed and thoroughly tested to measure balance and mobility. The future we see is that this system could even be taken to the client’s residence by a physiotherapist where the tests can be administered. Thus, the client does not have to leave their familiar surroundings such as a retirement home or long-term care facility. Based on earlier testing, we plan to: (1) add two additional tests related to balance and mobility to the toolkit, (2) relate the readings obtained from all the tests to a diagnosis and eventual treatment, (3) determine if we can reduce the toolkit cost substantially by incorporating and testing less expensive accelerometers, and (4) extend the toolkit to assess cognitive capabilities using dual tasking.