Roliner has developed a self-adjusting wearable that helps ensure the comfort of people using a prosthetic device. The device fits between the wearer and their prosthetic, and uses artificial intelligence to adapt to a person’s changing body shape, reducing pain and preventing injury that can be caused by a hard prosthetic.

Origins

The human body changes shape, but prosthetic fittings cannot, because they are made of hard plastics to carry a body’s weight. This problem causes wounds, and leaves millions of amputees dependent on fitting clinics for the rest of their lives. With the goal of giving amputees comfort and confidence, Uğur Tanriverdi and Firat Güder decided to develop Roliner, a wearable device, that understands changes in an amputee’s stump and instantly adapts to them with AI.

Team

Team Roliner is a perfect combination of science, academia, and industry. It consists of academics and scientists specialised in biorobotics, machine-learning, medical device design and sensors, and also has business development experts, surgeons, clinicians and mentors in the medtech industry. Team Roliner has the experience, energy and the ambition to take this innovation forward and change the lives of millions.

The project

Roliner is an adaptive wearable device that combines the unique features of microfluidics, robotics and material science. An amputee places the device over their stump before putting on their prosthetic limb. When the user wears the prosthetic limb, Roliner starts adjusting itself to a comfort level that was determined by the user in the past. As the user walks and changes the settings via a mobile app, Roliner’s AI learns the best setting to automatically apply in the future to avoid pressure sores.

The solution enables individuals with prosthetics to:

• manage their prosthetics and give them more control over their condition;
• avoid chronic pressure ulcers, which can occur among amputees – especially diabetics;
• remain more active and productive by enjoying pain-free daily lives.

EIT Health has provided an invaluable network that supports the project’s business, clinical and technological activities at the same time. EIT Health also provides research funding, with an award of €612 000 in 2019. The project has already received £200 000 in research funds from MedTech SuperConnector (by Research England) in 2018, and will seek further funds in 2021 for scaling up for EU and international operations.

Impact

Patients will enjoy an improved quality of life thanks to a device that increases the comfort of their prosthetic and reduces injuries, so that they can stay more active. Healthcare services will save money due to reduced need for people wearing prosthetics to have them refit, or to undergo treatment for wounds. Society will benefit from reduced healthcare costs and greater productivity among people wearing prosthetics.

Why this is an EIT Health project

This project is in keeping with the EIT Health Focus Area of “Improving Care Pathways” because it uses cutting-edge technology to improve the health and quality of life of people who wear a prosthetic. It is also in keeping with the Focus Area of “Bringing Care Home” because the device automatically makes adjustments that once had to be made at a fitting clinic.