Gait (or walking) disorders can occur because of disease, accident, or sport injuries, but they are mostly associated to neuromuscular disorders. By 2020, 24 million EU citizens will suffer from a disorder affecting the nervous system of their leg. 25% of these citizens,6 million Europeans, will be affected by foot drop, which causes an abnormal gait which frequently leads to falls. These falls strongly influence the quality of life of all the affected and lead to depression and anxiety disorders.
The goal of an ankle foot orthosis’ (AFO) is to fully support or even restore a person's mobility. Within, AFOs, adapted orthoses imply long and arduous measuring, design and manufacturing processes, and their quality is highly dependent on the orthopaedist’s expertise and the available information about the gait evolution (seldom recovered with enough quality). This process is cumbersome, lengthy and expensive, often traumatic for patients, especially children, whose fast growth forces a frequent renewal of their orthosis.
MOWA Smart is the first customised AFO especially created to help people with gait disabilities associated to neuromuscular diseases. MOWA Smart’s uniqueness relies on the ground-breaking exploitation of Big Data and Machine Learning to assist orthopaedists in the design, digitalisation and manufacturing steps to produce individualised lower-limb orthoses in a totally adapted but fast and cost-efficient manner. Our proprietary sensor will allow remote monitoring and will register the movement (gait pattern) providing high-quality information about its evolution.
