San Francisco-based PeerWell has added an augmented reality (AR) feature to its app platform which will help post-surgical patients manage their recovery.
The feature allows users to take advantage of their mobile devices camera to scan and analyze their home environment and be provided with suggestions on how to minimize the risk of falls. The app, called PeerWell’s Trip and Fall Hazard Detector, is another step forward in ensuring that post-surgical patients are able to become more aware of their road to recovery.
“Falling is a top driver of injuries in older adults, and of special concern after a surgical procedure like a hip or knee replacement,” Dr. Michael Mont, orthopedic surgeon, said in a statement. “Right now, we do not have any tools to help patients identify and remove trip and fall hazards in their homes besides costly home visits or confusing brochures. PeerWell’s interactive AR extension in a sense extends physicians’ reach to help patients properly set up their home and ensure the safety in recovery.”
The app will point out hazards like cords, potentially loose rugs, and uneven floors in realtime as the user points the devices camera around the space. After the tour of the space has finished the app will deliver an itemized list of hazards, with images, for the user to review. This could even be used to review post-surgical plans with a doctor beforehand to discuss what adjustments might be needed to accommodate their recovery and for record keeping.
“Until now, augmented reality has mostly been used in gaming,” Manish Shah, CEO of PeerWell, said in a statement. “We’ve combined it with real-time image recognition powered by our AI to bring this life-saving tool to patients. This technology continues to put us years ahead of the industry. Most image recognition systems are trained using publicly available data sets. Here, there is no data set like this, so even the foundational data is proprietary.”
PeerWell offer two apps, which are designed to help patients with the long road that is surgery. PreHab helps patients prepare for their surgery while ReHab is designed to help with the recovery after the surgery. Now with the addition of the Trip and Fall Hazard Detector, PeerWell has a complete and comprehensive set of apps that will assist users with their road to recovery along with taking advantage of AR technology.
VRFocus will be sure to bring you all the latest on PeerWell in the future, so stay tuned for more.