Mobility in Elderly Assessed with iPad
From: Wake Forest University News - 01/19/2011
By: Cheryl Walker 

Wake Forest University researchers have developed the Mobility Assessment
Tool (MAT), software that grades mobility in elderly adults using video
animation. The researchers say the assessment can be completed in about five
minutes and produces a score to help patients understand their mobility
limitations and act as a yardstick to measure progress. Users watch short
animated videos of people performing everyday tasks, such as walking up
stairs or carrying a bag of groceries. After screening the videos, users
touch the screen to indicate which tasks they are capable of. "In pilot
testing, we found that the animation technology allowed older adults to
project themselves into the tasks," says Wake Forest's Tony Marsh. The
researchers say MAT could be used to write activity prescriptions to improve
mobility in older patients. "This is a tool that could be used quickly in a
physician's office or out in the field," says Wake Forest's Jack Rejeski, who
developed MAT with Marsh. MAT will be used in the LIFE study, a multiyear US
National Institutes of Health project that seeks to determine the effects of
physical activity and successful aging interventions on major mobility
disabilities. 

Read the entire article and view videos at:
http://news.wfu.edu/2011/01/19/mobility-in-elderly-assessed-through-ipad/

Links:
Tony Marsh
http://www.wfu.edu/hes/marsh.htm

Using video animation to assess mobility in older adults
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21127192

Development and validation of a video-animated tool for assessing mobility
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20403946

LIFE Study
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01072500