• One out of five falls causes a severe injury such as broken bones or head injury.
• 2.5 million older people are treated in emergency departments for fall injuries each year.
• Over 700,000 patients a year are hospitalized because of a fall injury, most often because of a head injury or hip fracture.
• More than 95% of hip fractures are caused by falling sideways.
• Falls are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries (TBI).
• Direct medical costs for fall injuries are an estimated $34 billion annually.

What Can Occur After a Fall?

• Patients often have difficulty sustaining balance for normal movement and performing everyday activities associated with independent living.
• Head injuries can cause concussion or TBI. These can be very serious, especially if the person is taking certain medicines (like blood thinners).
• Even if there is no serious injury, fear of falling can cause a person to be less active and weaker, increasing their chances of falling.

Fall risk assessments

• Medicare is making the RoF a priority due to the numbers involved. Assessments are currently based solely on the clinical judgment of a health care professional (subjective) or using a questionnaire.
• Studies show results vary with the experience level of the clinician, with an accuracy of only 35 percent.

A state-of-the-art sensory sock to evaluate neuro-visual processing dysfunction affecting balance and posture, provides assessment and treatment, thereby reducing falls and injury.

NeurOpTrek™ is an advanced system that, following a neurological event, will separate aspects of RoF between the visual and the body’s ability to sense movement, action, and location.

Visual solution:

• The NeurOpTrek™ will determine a starting prescription of yoked prisms for neurologically challenged persons.
• This instrument will also have EMR capabilities where the prescription will be automatically included in the EMR data for the clinician to utilize.

NeurOpTrek™ is pioneering in diagnosis and treatment of balance/posture dysfunction. It is patented and evidence based. Research has proven that dysfunction within the visual process relative to the sensorimotor system will cause a shift. This shift in the visual midline add to postural imbalance and can also be responsible for dizziness and vertigo.

For example, when a person experiences weakness or the inability to move on one side of the body, from a CVA or TBI, it has been reported that the person will lean away from the affected side. Research has proven that the weight shift is due to a dysfunction between the visual process and the sensorimotor system causing a shift away from the affected side.

• NeurOpTrek™, includes a mat with pressure-sensitive devices to record Center of Mass and Center of Pressure together with Vector Forces allowing software to evaluate imbalances in balance and posture.
• Not only will the instrument document the imbalance through quantitative assessment using state-of-the-art software and video, but the software is also designed to determine the exact axis and amount of yoked prism to be prescribed for the patient. The advantage is that a technician can operate NeurOpTrekTM.
• This instrument will eliminate the clinician’s need for extensive time-dependent trial and error testing to learn about bi-modal visual processing and organization of vision-related to balance and posture.