ITRI TODAY Spring issue 2022

Health Techs to Improve Quality of Life

Due to the ongoing global pandemic, innovations in e-health wearables, smart monitoring, and health management have received much attention at CES. ITRI’s highlight health technologies include PoseFit, a muscular functional screening mirror that can provide personalized exercise plans, and iPetWeaR, a health monitoring wearable device for pets.

PoseFit

The PoseFit muscular functional screening mirror measures muscular strength, flexibility, and imbalances, and provides a personalized and actionable exercise plan. PoseFit captures a user’s specific movement and posture through a lens and uses a skeletal recognition system to determine muscular function. By analyzing the strength of specific muscle groups, posture, flexibility, endurance, and sense of balance, it indicates which muscle groups are too tight or are not strong enough. This innovation provides customized exercise suggestions to strengthen muscles or point to places that should be massaged or relaxed. It requires no wearable devices to operate. The examinee is required to complete five sets of exercises, each of which is demonstrated with an instructional video.

PoseFit is suitable for two types of users: those trying to improve fitness and frail older adults. For those wanting to enhance body shape, performance and muscles, PoseFit provides a clear assessment of postures potentially harmful to health. For older adults who may experience age-related physiological decline, the system identifies weak muscle areas and posture issues, and recommends workout plans for improvement to minimize the risk of falls associated with poor posture or low muscle mass.

iPetWeaR

This CES 2022 Innovation Awards honoree is a wearable device that tracks a pet’s health data including heart rate, respiration, and activity, and alerts the pet guardian of abnormalities. The low-power physiological detection radar technology is completely harmless and does not require skin contact with the pet.

The device is attached to a pet’s collar to be near the pet’s neck/chest or can be integrated into pet mattresses. The collected physiological data is sent by Bluetooth to the pet guardian’s mobile device, where they can instantly view the data in an app and learn whether the pet is asleep or awake. In the case of irregular heartbeat or breathing the pet guardian will immediately receive a warning notification. The long-term history is also logged in a database for easy viewing.

iPetWeaR can help early detection of a pet’s underlying health condition to lower the risks of its sudden passing caused by heart attack, heat stroke or adverse vaccine reactions. Besides its application at home, iPetWeaR can assist staff in animal shelters and hospitals to provide improved animal care services.

Other health tech exhibits included the All-in-One Thermal Sensing System (another ITRI’s CES 2022 Innovation Awards Honoree), the Full-Body Strideway Analysis System, the EPiTRI bionic full-thickness skin tissue printing system, and the Automatic Cell Production System.