PRELUDE
IDEATE. INNOVATE. INSPIRE. These three words are used to describe Startoon Labs. It’s a catchy tagline? Yes. It describes the traits of the Startoon team? Yes. But what is important is to know whether or not these words describe the intention, the motive and objective of Startoon. Let’s find out.
‘Startoon Labs’ is a medtech company that specializes in manufacturing devices to track and monitor the recovery of patients. Patients going through physiotherapy sessions, patients recovering from certain neurological or musculo-skeletal disorders or patients with any other muscular injuries.
Startoon came into existence, in Hyderabad, in 2017, through the minds of Suresh Susurla and Mythreyi Susurla. Both of them, alumni of IIT and IIM, with the soul aim of revolutionizing physiotherapy and filling the gaps in this area of healthcare by the use of technology. Their focus through their products is to make the process of physiotherapy and recovery more scientific and quantifiable digitally.
This 4-year-old startup launched its flagship product ‘PHEEZEE’. Pheezee is available for physiotherapy clinics, rehab centers, home therapists and patients.
RECOVERY DISCOVERY
During a session at CAHOTECH (Consortium of Accredited Healthcare Organization) 2019, CEO Suresh Susurla gave a speech/presentation for Startoon where he briefly pointed out two problems, or to be specific two limitations, of the conventional physiotherapy centers or rehabilitation centers.
First, whenever physiotherapy is done its mostly performed under the supervision of an expert. But the issue with this process is that sometimes human errors might occur during the therapy and there is no technology to catch the error and report it. Hence, almost all the human inaccuracies and errors go unnoticed.
Another problem with the conventional physiotherapy methods which was pointed out was the movement of other parts of the body with the movement of limbs. Simply putting, when physiotherapy for hands is underway, we shouldn’t move our back, even to the slightest angle. And again, this goes unnoticed.
Now, Startoon promises to deliver it here and fill this specific gap of inaccuracy. “Even a single unit of inaccuracy is unacceptable” - this is the overall message that the product PHEEZEE gives us. This new discovery in the arena of medical recovery sets new standards for physiotherapy procedures.
THE PRODUCT
‘PHEEZEE’ is a portable device, wearable on the six different major joints of the patient who is going through physiotherapy. As mentioned, this device doesn’t compromise on accuracy, it has a least count of 1 degree and it can accurately quantify the movement of each and every muscle involved in the movement.
Coming to the tracking and monitoring part of the invention - PHEEZEE, the device is connected to a tablet, and sends all the data regarding the various movements of the joints and then the data is analyzed and an evidence-based report is generated which is then presented in the form of a graphical presentation. This presentation along with the graphs can accurately quantify and assess the recovery of the patient on a weekly, monthly basis. The device also gives a real time biofeedback of range of motion and electromyogram (EMG) of the recruited muscle.
What is also important regarding this graphical representation of recovery is that it acts as a moral support, as a confidence building machine for the patients. In conventional physiotherapy centers, this kind of an accurate and scientific report is absent, hence patients are least informed about the technicalities of their recovery.
At a cost which is way lesser than the conventional existing machines and technologies, PHEEZEE promises to be a value for money product with the best of the features available in the arena of physiotherapy.
FEELING OF ACCOMPLISHMENT
Since its inception in 2017, the journey for Startoon has been quite rewarding. Just within a year of its kickoff the team of Startoon managed to win first prize in Healthcare, HealthTech category at IKMC 2018, organized by IKP. In the same year Startoon also bagged “Best Potential Award” at GSAP 2018 organized by Samsung, Korea and IIIT Bangalore. Next year the winning of awards continued with winning “Most Innovative Idea – P&S Track” award at BMC Competition 2019 organized by IIT Kharagpur and Gold Award in Medicall Made in India Innovation Award 2019.
CONCLUSION
With rapid increase in service sector jobs, a big chunk of the working population has some job or another where one needs to sit on chair for 8-9 hours a day and work on the computer. And because of this, a lot of physiotherapy clinics popped up in metro cities as complaints of back pain and other muscular pains increased among the youth.
And here this innovation Pheezee will surely take physiotherapy to next level and cater to the present needs of the population.