Hello everyone,
Last week during our meeting we decided to define and focus our work with more precision. We started by asking again ourselves about the real goal of our project. Who are the real target customers and users, which is the real value proposition and who are our competitors. It was really necessary for us if we would continue to develop our project through a relevant way.
As a reminder, the following text explain the topic in which we will evolve with our project.
Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear is the most common ligament injury of the knee, with 200,000 cases operated / year in the United States. It occurs most often in the patient involved in a regular sports activity, before the age of 25 years.
Every year in Switzerland, 10,000 to 12,000 people suffer from a knee injury involving an ACL lesion. Amongst these injuries, 73% are caused by sport (mainly skiing and football).
More than a third of the athletes are unable to restart their sport at the same level and almost a fifth will suffer a new accident during this recovery.
Quality rehabilitation for a return to sport by limiting the risk of recurrence requires good collaboration between surgeon, physiotherapist and patient: supervision and regular monitoring of patient progress. Recovery takes months. However, flexibility decreases with time. If the patient feels mentored by a team and sees their progress, positive feedback is established. A rehabilitation process should be specific to the targeted sport.
Our project try to offer a product for sportsman in a rehab process at home after an ACL surgery. This product should assist, motivate them to do their exercises, give them a feedback and in parallel data for the physiotherapist.
It occurs there is a gap during the phase II about assisting and monitoring the patient at home during the rehab timeline (see picture above).
Thus, we are focused to develop an attractive product for sportsman that can fill this gap. We are looking for inspiration in sportswear trends and the app is thought by proposing a kind of gamification using the competitive spirit of the sportsman (challenge, rewards, etc…).
For now the project is materialized through a kind of “smart knee brace” made of compression knitting with integrated sensors and an electronic part removable.
Next week we will be able to post a picture of our prototype.
Best,
Fabien