Ian Bolland caught up with Dr Paul Rinne, CEO and founder of GripAble to discuss its remote rehabilitation offering and how the outlook has changed for adopting similar technologies.
Victor Yuan
Dr Rinne founded the company when he was a PhD student at Imperial College London, where, as a neuroscientist, he was researching neuroplasticity, in particular how the brain recovers post-damage.
The approach to developing GripAble was as Rinne explains, ‘bottom-up’ rather than being handed “fancy” robotic technology to work with, but to start with a paitent’s needs and find the right technological solution. Motion capture systems and virtual reality technology were examples of technology that have been entertained in this field but didn’t have the desired effect due to time constraints or usability and doesn’t encourage mass adoption. A core focus for Dr Rinne was ease of use.
Dr Rinne explains: “Hopefully it will improve, and we want to work with VR systems – I really remember a quote that hit home for me from a stroke patient and it was: “Paul, every day I wake up and feel I’ve got a worse hangover. That’s my feeling from this stroke. The last thing I want to do is put goggles over my eyes and go into a 3D world.””
The GripAble device is a joystick that uses in-built sensors to measure a patient’s strength, by measuring grip strength and release. The gyroscopes and accelerometers in the device track range and motion in wrist and lower arm movements as start points.
“I was really trying to strip back on the complex nature of things and go: actually, where is the opportunity with something like mobile? It really should be built in an incredibly intuitive and quick way. If you look at some of the top products outside of rehabilitation, it’s built on being as simple as possible.
“GripAble looks to not create a new pathway, but to improve on a current pathway. Right now, there is a device that measures grip strength, it’s found on the majority of clinics around the world that do anything to do with upper limb and arm recovery. It is a simple case of squeeze as hard as you can, and it gives you kilos of force of what that individual can squeeze. We do the same with GripAble.”
From the first sketches of the device, it took seven years from the idea’s conception to manufacture. This included two to three years of clinical prototyping, validation and working with clinicians and patients to pinpoint the product’s applicability, and the GripAble team saw the opportunity surrounding the upsurge in adoption of mobile technology in everyday life.
Despite the inevitable delays brought about because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the device completed its journey from concept to manufacture in the summer of 2020.
“We went through 100 different shapes to get the right shape for the patient, the correct way for modular add-ons to be clipped on so that individual finger training and various things that are coming.
“The most important thing for me was moving away from any sort of computers or anything that was fixed to a set location.
“Mobile apps and mobile technology coming through was the big leap forward to go; actually, this is something that can be used in the clinic, the patient can then take it to the bedside but most importantly they can pop it in their bag and take it home.
“With COVID-19, the big drive and the big push for everyone approaching us is the need of something for home use. That’s the big shift for us. Now providers and therapists are actively seeking solutions that can be left with the patient and that can be taken to the patient’s home.
“Before, you were forging that market and no-one was really pushing for it, now that opportunity to help people at home has vastly increased for us.”
