Welcome to EuMotus

Welcome to EuMotus, we’ve been expecting you! If you found yourself wondering how you can improve your clinic’s business and health outcomes, we think you are in a good place!

In our blog series we will analyse and discuss the challenge of adherence in the field of musculoskeletal disease management and performance analysis. We will examine the intersection of movement analysis software and customer service, process and operations, as well as business and marketing challenges and opportunities in the fields of physical therapy, athletic training and chiropractic care.

While we will jump in-depth into the above fields, we will always take the view of the medical or fitness professional, bringing back the discussion to the most salient topics: improving business and health outcomes.

Empowering PTs to be successful [1]

What problems are we helping physical therapists solve?

The very high and costly figure of up to 70% non-adherence in musculoskeletal disease management programs [2], taking the form of missed in-clinic attendance & at-home exercise leading to missed revenue opportunities and poor health outcomes.

Why are clients displaying such high non-adherence?

There are studies and systematic reviews examining this problem from multiple angles over spans of decades. The topic can be broad and specific explanations can be in-depth, and we will approach the core of this topic in future discussions.

How many times have you explained to your client his/her improper kinetic pattern only to be met by blank stares? Or maybe you’ll get a nod, but it turns out that nothing was understood.

In general, the public is not aware of the concept of functional health. In some patient’s cases the problem starts with pain and the treatment ends with the lack of pain. Unfortunately, this scenario leaves open a relatively higher risk of re-injury, due to lack of a full recovery.

We could also examine through an inverse perspective: how could we potentially build better trust and a mutually beneficial working relationship? The clinician has limited opportunities to educate their client. PTs could use powerful movement analysis data and visuals in the battle of customer education. By adding a layer of visual feedback in addition to verbal feedback, we are working towards gaining the client’s trust. #trustbutverify.

So where exactly does motion analysis software fit in solving this huge problem of customer churn and non-adherence?

In the 20th century, the literature referred to this problem as customer or patient compliance. In recent years, there has been discussion and a shift towards adherence, perhaps reflective of a broader shift from a paternalistic style of relationship to one of partnership, shared responsibility and goal setting.

In this shift towards trust-building, markerless movement analysis software increases trust between provider and client by translating complex human movement and expert knowledge into a simple shared visual medium. The PT brings data to the treatment program and uses video and analytics to communicate with the client. The client now understands the underlying problem, the reasoning for the treatment protocol, and willingly participates. In this way, the PT increases client education, engagement, and ultimately, retention.

Markerless movement analysis software generates objective data to help the PT quickly, efficiently, and easily assess their clients and form a plan of treatment based on objective data. Traditionally, this has been performed visually or with analog systems such as FMS. Visual and analog systems can be subjective, can have a degree of error and are time and effort consuming. It is not possible to dissect movement, identify poor movement patterns for the patient to see and correct their movement.

That sounds great, but isn’t motion analysis software traditionally expensive, complex and difficult to use, limited to a handful of clinics and academic research institutions?

It certainly has been! Traditional motion capture’s multiple cameras and markers can seem overwhelming.

Until a few years ago, biomechanics or movement analysis software competed on improving the product by achieving high accuracy and measuring many metrics. Yet this approach required complex post-processing and it also took up as much real estate as a small PT clinic, while being underutilized to the order of a few uses per year. All while costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Traditional motion capture was designed for well-funded research government and academic laboratories. It certainly was not designed for clinicians with physical therapy software being the primary application and PTs the target customer.

So how is markerless movement analysis software different, or perhaps better than motion capture?

The answer is simple: markerless movement analysis software focuses on accessibility, ease of use, and quickness. You can run a holistic body screen of your patient in 1.5 – 5 minutes. Compare that to 4 hours of operational time for traditional movement analysis. This is ~2% of the time required to run traditional motion capture software. The software is so easy to use that you can now quickly assess your client’s functional health status, as soon as they are in your clinic’s door. You have the luxury of collecting valuable kinetic movement data on all of your clients. Markerless movement analysis has been designed for the operational setting of the clinic where every minute is valued by both the client and the PT.

Markerless movement analysis software as a service also carries no capital cost, and does not depreciate. Annual operational cost is less than 5% of the capital cost of traditional motion capture software. Utilization for traditional motion capture software is 24 clients per year, or ~$1000s per patient. Markerless motion analysis software can examine as many clients as needed on a daily basis. Say, 20 clients per day or 5000 clients per year. The cost per client assessment is less than $1 per client visit and thousands of times more cost effective than traditional motion capture software!

For each $1 you spent on motion analysis for each customer, you increase their retention. Each additional visit can significantly improve the client’s health outcome and your clinic’s business outcome! Instead of getting between you and your customers, we help you better connect with and engage with your clients through data and powerful visuals.

We help you measure everything from hip flexion to knee valgus to shoulder roll. In turn, as the medical or fitness professional you translate complex functional movement into communication that your customer can understand.

We are empowering physical therapists, athletic trainers, and chiropractors by making motion analysis software accessible and really easy to engage and educate their customers.

EuMotus is composed of athletes across the spectrum, from weekend warriors, to NCAA athletes, to Olympians and US national champions. We have all suffered, first hand, from injuries and pains that prevented us from fully enjoying and competing in our sports. We understand the importance of functional health! We work hand-in-hand with leaders in the fields of physical therapy, chiropractic care, and athletic training to help them achieve their business and health outcomes objectives.

We are a startup and are tinkering with our service and exploring avenues where we can be of greatest help to our customers. If you have an idea, suggestion or question – please reach out to us. We would love for you to join the discussion in how you can succeed by becoming an early adopter of motion analysis software!

[1] https://pixabay.com/en/tartan-track-career-runway-2678544/. Accessed September 2017

[2] Sluijs EM1, Kok GJ, van der Zee J. Phys Ther. 1993 Nov;73(11):771-82; discussion 783-6. Correlates of exercise compliance in physical therapy. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8234458. Accessed September 2017