UNL engineer develops wearable sticker that tracks walking patterns to detect disease earlier
Omaha, Neb. (KLKN) – The detection of dangerous diseases may now be possible through a tiny sticker, thanks to an engineer at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who is making waves in the world of medicine.
The device, designed by Prof. Fadi Alsaleem (who currently teaches at UNL,) was first developed in a lab at the University of Nebraska-Omaha.
Channel 8 was given exclusive access on Friday to see how the coin-sized device is made and how it gives doctors a heads up on what’s happening inside the body.
Dr. Iraklis Pipinos is a Professor of Vascular Surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
He says that by evaluating the way a person walks, or their gait, is many times the very first step in discovering some major medical issues.
Additionally, different diseases affect your walking in different ways.
“In other words, if the problem is your joints, you have a certain walking pattern. If the problem is blood flow, you have a little different pattern, and if your brain is the problem, different again,” said Pipinos.
He says identifying these patterns is crucial for diagnosis and takes a multidisciplinary collaboration.
Doctors study the disease’s impact on the body, and biomechanists like UNMC’s Dr. Sara Meyr, can use that information to help connect it with walking difficulties.
“And then engineers like Dr. Alsaleem take this information and produce a sensor,” said Pipinos.
After a conversation with NU President Dr. Jeffrey Gold, Alsaleem spent the past year using his research in the field of architectural engineering to build a small sensor that sticks to the body like a bandage.
It’s placed on a person’s back and monitors the body’s movements over time, while storing information, and only needing to be recharged every two weeks or so.
This work all came together by means of a grant from the Nebraska department for commercialization, as well as funds from private donors and businesses in Nebraska.
Efforts that Alsaleem says made a “strong eco-system of support that can move things from research to product.”
Alsaleem partnered with Chief commercial officer Lance Stewart to then create the company, Grasshopper Health.
His work is now revolutionizing the ability for everyday people to provide their doctors with data for early detection of ailments like Alzheimer’s or Parkinsons.
The team is currently building the AI model to improve the efficiency of the sticker and then will be starting clinical trials.
“They will recruit patients with Parkinson’s disease and healthy subjects, because you want to compare healthy subjects with the one’s who have the disease,” said Alsaleem.
“We envision this, bigger than this,” he said. “And eventually I’m waiting for our Huskers, or the Mavericks at UNO, [to be] wearing this during the game.”
Alsaleem says his goal is to make the device as affordable as possible so that the product can be used by people all around the world, after having its starting point right here in Nebraska.
The product is expected to be on market for the public to purchase by 2027 and should be covered by most insurance plans under medical device coverage.
