The man behind an innovative exercise and rehabilitation system to screen patients at risk of serious falls, believes it will “revolutionise” the way the primary care sector deals with what has become a massive global problem linked to ageing.

Tim Henson has spent the last decade and hundreds of thousands of pounds developing the Formula Motion falls prevention screening machine.

The UK-based product developer, who has already made a name for himself as the inventor of novel patient lifting devices and a curved stairlift manufactured and sold by a British company, maintains Formula Motion could help make the world an easier place to live for those susceptible to falls, and even help spot the early signs of Alzheimer’s, whose symptoms can include loss of balance and coordination.

Mr Henson said Formula Motion –  which has already been granted patents in the US, EU and UK – could also be used for stroke rehabilitation; treating Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, and muscular dystrophy patients amongst others; by elite athletes, gyms and health clubs; in sports injury and physiotherapy clinics; and to help combat virtual reality sickness, where over-exposure to VR technology can lead to feelings of motion sickness, dizziness, and nausea.

Aston University in Birmingham in the UK and the ExtraCare Charitable Trust – a major retirement village group – have already been involved in early testing for falls prevention, while Loughborough University has helped with the elite sports side.

Formula Motion is still in the working prototype phase with Mr Henson looking to raise £1.4m to finalise the design of a production model, do further testing, and gain safety approval. But a US distributor has already been identified.

Mr Henson told Agetech World: “Formula Motion is a truly dynamic way of screening for those at risk of falling. This is confirmed by our technology being patented in the US, UK and key European countries. Basically, our new care pathway will revolutionise the way we deal with the massive worldwide problem of falls in the older population.

“With the time and the money I have already put into this, I am confident that Formula Motion will have a big impact on the way older patients are dealt with in primary care not just in the UK, but around the world, improving the targeting of treatments and fall prevention strategies which in turn will help reduce hospital admissions and speed up recovery times.”

According to the World Health Organisation, the share of the global population aged over 60 will stand at 1.4bn by 2030.

Older people are more likely to have a fall because the natural ageing process can cause balance, vision and hearing problems as well as muscle deterioration. Medical issues and certain drugs can also increase the risk of tripping, stumbling, slipping and collapsing.

Adults over the age of 60 suffer the greatest number of fatal falls, with World Health Organisation figures suggesting 684,000 people die globally every year as a result – the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths.

More than 37m falls annually are severe enough to need medical attention.

In the EU and UK alone one in three older people will suffer a fall, resulting in 3.5m fractures costing £40bn in treatment costs. Of these, 33% with a hip fracture will die within 12 months.

The World Health Organisation has proposed a number of prevention strategies, including education, training, and creating safer environments, as well as “prioritising fall-related research and establishing effective policies to reduce risk.”

The Formula Motion machine.

Mr Henson believes Formula Motion could prevent 150,000 falls annually just in Europe, saving not only lives but €1.8bn.

He said: “Formula Motion could have a massive impact on the way older patients are managed in the primary care setting, improving fall prevention strategies and the targeting of treatment.”

There are other devices currently on the market to predict and prevent serious falls. But Mr Henson claims none offer the features and benefits of his system.

Formula Motion works like a ‘wobble board’. Users can either move the platform themselves by body pressure, or the machine can do the work for them. It is capable of switching instantly between both modes. Mr Henson said: “These features are unique and give the ability to give a truly dynamic balance assessment and falls prevention screening.”

Operated by an intuitive touch screen, users can sit, stand, kneel or lie on the platform. It can raise, lower and tilt in all directions, and combine to give sophisticated movements.

Set programmes can be run to exercise specific combinations of muscles, or to enhance skills for a particular rehabilitation or sport.

The user or a medical professional can also create programmes tailored to particular needs.

Mr Henson said Formula Motion’s hybrid design “is unique and adds a whole new dimension to the fields of rehabilitation, performance training, exercise and virtual reality.”

It is the intention to target the falls prevention market first, and then the rehabilitation sector, elite sports, fitness gyms and virtual reality.

Tim Henson – inventor, founder and CEO of Formula Motion.

Mr Henson fell into working in the medical and disability world 20 years ago when he developed a new kind of lifting frame for a friend who was a wheelchair user.

“Once you do one thing, you start to do others,” he explained. “I then developed a stair lift and got involved in what you might call invasive medical products. I’ve designed products for caesarean births and bowel operations.

“People come to me and say, ‘we’re consultants in such and such medical field, we need a device that can do so and so.’ They explain their need and I go off and do the engineering.

“The age market place probably came to mind about 10 years ago. We all have relatives and friends who are elderly and they have a fall. If they’re in their 70s or 80s, they might break a hip and, if we’re really blunt about it, a fall at that age can often be the start of their demise.

“Falls are the unknown pandemic. When you think about the number of falls and the deaths that result from them, it’s an enormous problem.”

He continued: “What struck me all those years ago is that people often don’t realise as they get older that they are losing their balance. It sounds a little corny, but I thought why don’t we screen everyone when they get to say 70, like we screen for breast cancer, and we can determine their balance ability compared with the norm.

“If everyone was screened and there was a quick way of doing that, the minimum benefit would be that someone would go home from that screening aware that their balance wasn’t as good as it once was. So that person may say, ‘you know what, I won’t go up the ladder to paint the house anymore because I now know my balance isn’t as good.’

“Often screening alerts people to a problem and they look after themselves more.”

Mr Henson said other reasons for screening is that once it is known that someone’s balance isn’t as good as it should be, investigations can begin to determine why. “It could be as simple as an ear or muscular issue, or it could alert doctors to it not just being an age thing, but a sign of something else that needs investigating.

“It was from this that I had the vision about developing a balance machine that could prevent injury, rehabilitate and save lives.

“Our vision is for a world where the catastrophic effects of falls on the elderly, including loss of independence and loss of life, are a distant memory.”