• Nymbl Science’s mission is to help millions of people improve their balance at very low cost and with a minimal time commitment. The Nymbl system is essentially a personalized balance coach on a smartphone. The app, with the help of the motion sensors already in a smartphone, evaluates a user’s balance, provides a score, recommends a personalized exercise routine, tracks progress to show incremental improvements over time, and finally adjusts their exercises based on rising or decreasing percentages in their balance score. • To date, our system has focused on "static balance". Recent studies in medical laboratories have shown that there are additional, more advanced techniques that can be used to obtain a more complete picture of a person's balance capability. For example, "Dynamic Balance" involves precise mesasurement of stride variability parameters and is strongly correlated with predictibiliy of falls. In fact a University of Missouri study (2016) found that a decrease in stride of 5cm is an 86% predictor of an upcoming fall within 3 weeks. • We are requesting grant assistance to do the research necessary to understand how these new balance analysis techniques could be implemented in a low-cost, consumer friendly system. This would enable the widespread use of these techniques in a very economical way and allow a large population to benefit from better early warning of impending falls as well as training programs to improve dynamic balance without the need for expensive clinical analysis and physical therapy.

"Loss of balance and the resulting injuries caused by falling is one of the most significant healthcare problems facing people as they age. About one in three people in England over 65 fall at least once every year, and the results are often costly and life shortening. Currently, balance testing, evaluation and treatment is only available in specialty clinics, using expensive devices and run by experts. No consumer product exists that allows a person on their own to effectively test their balance and then provide interactive exercises to improve it. Balance4Good is developing an affordable consumer focused system to enable self-managed balance improvement in order to help prevent falls. The proposed system will integrate low cost wearable sensors with a smartphone app and online service to measure balance, propose exercises, and monitor improvement."

Loss of balance and the resulting injuries caused by falling is one of the most significant healthcare problems facing people as they age. About one in three people in England over 65 fall at least once every year, and the results are often costly and life shortening. Currently, balance testing, evaluation and treatment is only available in specialty clinics, using expensive devices and run by experts. No consumer product exists that allows a person on their own to effectively test their balance and provides interactive exercises to improve it. Balance4Good is developing an affordable system that will enable self-managed balance improvement to prevent falls. This technology will integrate low cost, easy to use wearable sensors with a smartphone app and online service that will measure balance, propose exercises, and monitor improvement. Balance4Good will take proven medical techniques out of the clinic and make them available to a wider population with the goal of reducing the cost and life threatening impact of accidental falls amongst the aging.