How does it work?
The developed tool consists of a combination of a flexible software platform together with wearable insole device collecting data related with gait.
Elderly people wear a pair of insoles not only in clinical settings, but also at home and during daily activities. Thanks to a wireless system and several sensors embedded into the insole, the data captured by the movement of the foot are sent first to a mobile device and later to a server, so that the evolution of a patient can be monitored remotely in terms of gait, fall risk, activity and mobility.
 
In the evening, elderly people take the insoles from their shoes can charge them easily using the inductive charging station.
 
Risk of falls is assessed based on multiple gait parameters and gait pattern recognition. WIISEL allows quantifying activity, assessing the quality of gait under real life conditions and enable researchers to evaluate and monitor fall risk in elderly patients, in the home and community environment, mostly reflecting everyday life behavior.
 
Who can take benefit from the WIISEL solution?
Mainly researchers on gait analysis, fall prediction, and clinicians, since the potential utility and impact of using the WIISEL system on the research and clinical community is:

• Allowing for remote and quantitative assessment of a user's fall risk
• Measuring activity and mobility in daily living conditions
• As a clinical assessment tool, allowing its use as part of any research and assessment of gait parameters.
• Enabling the early identification of functional mobility decline in performance (i.e. assessment of motor fluctuations and disease progression)
• Enabling fall detection in the home setting

Apart from gait analysis and fall prediction, are other applications possible with the WIISEL system?
Yes, the WIISEL system as a flexible tool may lay the ground for a commercial pathway as a continuous and remotely monitoring platform. Different applications have been detected (see figure).
 
Why is WIISEL a key initiative for Europe nowadays?
According to the European Union, by 2050 the number of people in the EU aged 65 and above is expected to grow by 70% and the number of people aged over 80 by 170%. It is a fact the ageing of Europe's population is a challenge for the European social and health systems.
Age is a major risk factor for fall injury. 30% of people over 65 and 50% of those over 80 years fall each year, and older adults who fall once are two to three times as likely to fall again within a year .
 
A system like WIISEL, that in an unobtrusive way will allow to analyze movement, posture and activity of the elderly population by extracting a direct and continuous information from gait, is beyond any doubt of utmost importance in this context, by assessing the risk of falls among the elders and indirectly enabling the implementation of early and adapted interventions to lower this risk.
 
Which are next steps? How to get involved?
The WIISEL consortium has finalized the trials in 3 clinical sites (Ireland, Israel end Italy) and has presented the project results to the research and clinician communities.
Now, the consortium looks for collaborators to release a more advanced prototype, implement the technology up-scale and reach the market.