Globally Accessible Scoliosis Awareness and Early Diagnosis

Fited for Scoliosis is a smartphone app distributed for free across the globe for Scoliosis awareness and diagnosis. Scoliosis affects girls 8x more than boys, causing their spine to grow abnormally. Our solution uses machine learning, computer vision, and mobile technologies to provide awareness, timely diagnosis, and access to treatment.

Scoliosis is a genetic disease that affects the curvature of the spine in 2% of the global population. It disproportionately affects girls 8x more than boys. Timely diagnosis is critical for preventative care through bracing. Undiagnosed patients end-up with invasive and expensive surgery as adults. This surgery is inaccessible in the developing world, causing the patients to suffer from high blood pressure, chronic hip/back pain, arthritis, and regular loss of balance and mobility. They are unable to live a regular healthy life. Today, over 90% of scoliosis patients go undiagnosed or treated in developing economies. We will fix this.

With scoliosis awareness, screening, and timely diagnosis, 72% patients will avoid invasive surgery at 1/100th the cost through scoliosis bracing. According to American Academy of Pediatrics, “Screening exams for spine deformity should be part of medical home preventive services for girls at ages 10 and 12 years.” The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) did a study to establish that timely diagnosis and regular bracing helps patients avoid surgery with a 72% success rate.

Fited for scoliosis will ensure all girls between 10-14 years old across the world have access to awareness, early symptom screening, and timely care for scoliosis. We will establish scoliosis awareness and screening programs to connect patients with a local or remote doctor for timely treatment. Our target is to screen 1 million girls in the first year, and will connect 2% of them to a doctor. We will distribute Fited for Scoliosis app for free through the app store. With our app, we will enable parents, nonprofits, and schools to screen for scoliosis and help patients get timely treatment.

Track downloads in the app store - 10000 teachers in India download our app

Track number of girls screened in the app - 1000000 girls in India are informed and screened for Scoliosis (10 per teacher/app download)

Track number of girls that message local and remote doctors in the app. - 20000 girls get connected with local and remote doctors for treatment

Our solution provides scoliosis awareness, early symptom diagnosis, and treatment options through local and remote doctors. We use computer vision and mobile technologies to provide easy and accessible tools to accurately screen for early symptoms of scoliosis. We also provide access to local and remote doctors who can provide timely treatment for the patient. The current screening solutions are expensive, don’t contain sufficient information, don’t record the data, and they don't provide the ability to connect with a doctor. We will distribute our solution freely across the world to ensure that every child is aware of and screened for scoliosis.

In a connected world, we can provide access to treatment for underserved communities in remote areas through technology. Fited for Scoliosis is designed to achieve this by empowering community groups with intuitive and easy to use mobile technology tools to help increase the group’s impact and decrease the number of girls adversely affected with scoliosis. Remote collaboration with local community groups help us to achieve our mission of screening children for scoliosis. We also learn and formulate our solutions based on their collective experiences. Our mobile solution will also connect groups to each other through their collective global mission.

Our solution will be distributed for free through the app store. We will reach out to schools, non-profits and governments to help increase the overall distribution of our app. At the core of our solution design is simplicity and usability, which will make it more accessible for anyone to access and use it.

Our team has moved from their New York City jobs, back into their parents houses in order to build this solution. As a team, we have been supported through our own funds, as well as support through our family and friends. In the next few months, we will start to reach out to various investor groups in the New York and Boston area for seed funding to continue both our efforts on the Scoliosis Awareness, Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment Solution, as well as our ongoing work on creating an accessible 3D printed scoliosis brace prescribed through a mobile app with photos. We will bring our 3D printed scoliosis brace to market in US and Western Europe initially, which will in turn give us the financial means to make these braces accessible in the developing world, hence aiding in the treatment of the patients in the developing world.

Biggest risk for scoliosis awareness and screening app and outreach program is the lack of government support for scoliosis screening in schools today. The screening program in schools was discontinued because current manual methods were ineffective in detecting early signs of scoliosis. The goal of our inventions is to make Scoliosis detection accurate and overcome this barrier.

Current manual screening methods and its inaccuracy associated has lead to decreased support from local governments for screening programs. This lack of support stopped new development on the screening. Non-profits and some hospitals have limited outreach programs to increase scoliosis awareness.

https://www.niams.nih.gov/News_and_Events/Press_Releases/2013/9_19.asp

http://www.aappublications.org/news/aapnewsmag/2016/03/21/Scoliosis032116.full.pdf

Becoming a solver, combined with our core values in providing accessible end-to-end digital solutions for scoliosis, we will be able to attract like minded collaborators, team members, nonprofits, and other partners to contribute to our overall mission to screen all the children. Also as a solver, our experience and technical know how can benefit other solvers in helping guide them to their solutions that will have global impact.

We are working with Maastricht UMC+ Hospital in the Netherlands and with the Acibadem Hospitals in Turkey. Heads of the orthopedic departments and their patients collaborate with us on our solution. Bayer Foundation is sponsoring us in Europe to build a support base for our efforts in the developing world.

Boston O & P, Unyq, local scoliosis medical labs