Patients with mitochondrial disease often have balance problems due to nerve damage or inner ear problems. These issues can lead to falls, and while specific exercises can help to improve balance, it’s not always easy for patients to get access to regular physiotherapy or find the motivation to do exercises at home without support.
However, new wearable devices, which have become much more affordable in recent years, could hold the key. That’s why we’ve decided to invest over £70k in a new project that’s aiming to develop technology to enable mitochondrial disease patients to take part in unsupervised exercises at home.
Led by Prof Robert Pitceathly, a team at UCL believe that a wearable device and app could potentially help patients in several ways – by reminding them to exercise, by tracking their progress and by providing motivation and feedback on how they’re doing.
The project aims to develop and refine a wearable sensor and smartphone app designed specifically for mitochondrial disease patients to improve posture and balance while they exercise at home. The UCL team plan to run a small initial study to ensure patients find the technology easy and helpful, before undertaking a larger project to see how well the device and app work for improving balance in mitochondrial disease patients.
The hope is that by using the technology, mitochondrial disease patients with balance issues will find it easier to exercise regularly and correctly, which would help improve their balance and consequently reduce the risk of falls. Ultimately, patients would be able retain more independence and have a better quality of life, and that gets a big thumbs-up from us.