Akina - Better begins today

Are you affected by musculoskeletal pain or is it part of your daily work to treat it? If that’s the case, Akina is the right place for you. In the following article we would like to introduce you to Akina and our mission, give you an insight into how our software works and describe the most important benefits of our platform for patients and professionals.

This is who we are, this is our mission

Akina is a Swiss MedTech start-up in the field of software development. Our mission is to bridge the gap between patients and healthcare providers by leveraging cutting-edge technologies to make patient care more personalized and individualized. Our mission is to advance the Connected Care approach to healthcare in Switzerland. The goal is to make healthcare more efficient, interactive and accessible. To achieve this vision, we harness the principles of Remote Therapeutic Monitoring, in combination with advanced AI technology.

Our Akina Cloud software guides patients through therapeutic training at home via our interactive, audiovisual platform. With instant AI feedback, the user knows if the exercise is being performed correctly and what to pay special attention to during training. Physiotherapists have the ability to assess their patients' progress or deficits asynchronously and adjust their training plan accordingly. This allows patients and therapists to stay in dialogue and make physical therapy more efficient. With Akina, better starts today - are you in?

Our platform: this is how Akina Cloud works

Maybe this all sounds a bit abstract at first. Don't worry - in the following section, we'll show you the different aspects of the platform, from how to select the best training plan to how to get feedback from your physiotherapist.

Selecting and assigning an individual training plan

With Akina Cloud, physiotherapists can assign personalized therapeutic training programs for their patients to complete on their own.

Execution of the training

Patients can access our software via web browser and consult their assigned workout plan. Similar to other fitness tutorials, an instructor appears in a video tutorial, showing step-by-step how the exercises should be performed. The big difference from traditional tutorials? The user's movements are analyzed by the webcam of the computer.

Optimization of the movement

There are around twenty different versions of the virtual instructor in the video for each exercise, in which all potential optimization options are addressed individually. The algorithm selects the appropriate video, which seamlessly follows the instruction. This results in a continuous video stream, which allows for smooth training without waiting times and ensures that the training is perfectly tailored to the user.

How the program works

It is important to mention that the user is not filmed. The application recognizes his joints and limbs and their relative angles to each other and marks them as so-called "landmarks". From these landmarks, our artificial intelligence recognizes the user's movement pattern. The program goes one step further: it interprets the movement consciously and contextually, for example, how far and at what angle a leg is lifted, and whether this movement is executed correctly. At this point, a lot of knowledge about human anatomy flows in, which is combined with the sophisticated algorithmic models.

Tracking and additional features

The software counts the number of repetitions performed of an exercise to ensure symmetrical execution and continuous tracking. Not only the number of repetitions is stored, but also the average quality of the exercise performed. The user can also indicate the subjectively felt pain on a scale of 0 to 10, as well as rate the difficulty of the exercise.

Review by physiotherapist

The responsible physiotherapist receives the evaluation of the training session in report form, from which they can see the respective target achievement in percent, as well as additional comments from their patients regarding difficulty or pain. If Akina identifies a particular need for additional guidance on an exercise, the therapist can view a 3D visualization of the exercise - this is created using a neutral avatar based on the landmarks recorded by the patient. Using this visualization, the physiotherapist can provide feedback to the patient via text, audio or video message, or discuss the exercise in the next face-to-face therapy session.

This is the added value Akina offers

Benefits for patients

• Pain relief and mobility restoration:
  Both acute and chronic pain can be effectively relieved through targeted movements. It also restores or improves mobility.
  
• Fun training:
  Interactive training with Akina Cloud is tailored to the individual user and combines physical exercises with interesting health information and meditative recovery elements.
  
• Faster and better results:
  Correctly executed and regular training between regular physiotherapy appointments significantly improves the success of the therapy.
  
• Clear tracking:
  The user's progress and deficits are recorded in an automatically generated exercise diary. This means that it is always clear for both the patient and the physiotherapist what the next steps are for maximum treatment success.

Benefits for physiotherapists

• Quality assurance of the training:
  Using the exercise diary, physiotherapists can check the extent and quality of the exercises performed by their patients. Exercising correctly between regular physiotherapy appointments improves the effectiveness of your treatment.
  
• Expanding the benefits and billing catalog:
  We know that current payment for physiotherapy leaves virtually no room for additional services - many administrative activities must currently be provided uncompensated. This can be changed with the Remote Therapeutic Monitoring model used at Akina: This approach has already had an extremely positive start in the US. We are working to bring this cost-effective method of care to Switzerland. This will allow physical therapists to diversify their service and billing catalog, health insurance companies will receive objectively measurable performance data, and patients will benefit from seamless care.
  
• Relief in everyday work:
  Akina Cloud offers physiotherapists the ability to perform some of their work remotely and asynchronously. Already 16% of all physiotherapists in the US use Remote Therapeutic Monitoring, which can account for 7-10 hours of work per week. This leads to more flexibility and variety in their work day, as they can spend this time working remotely from home.

We hope that this article has given you a first insight into our platform. Want to try Akina right away? Be among the first to be notified about our product launch and get early access to the platform. We look forward to hearing from you!