Associate Professor Paige Little, Research Director of the QUT Biomechanics & Spine Research Group delivered a passionate pitch for support, describing a current scoliosis smartphone App project underway in collaboration with Dr Geoff Askin and the Spine Orthopaedic Surgeons at the Queensland Children’s Hospital, Brisbane.
Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) is the most common type of spine deformity in children and requires regular medical follow-up to ensure appropriate and timely treatments in the hopes of avoiding spinal fusion surgery. But this is particularly difficult for children and families who live in remote and rural areas. Trips to Brisbane for regular spine specialist review involves parents missing work, having to find care for other children in their absence, organising travel and sometimes overnight accommodation, in addition to the overall general inconvenience and cost involved. The result is that these children are at risk of missing or delaying appointments and therefore missing their chance of receiving conservative treatment, like wearing a brace to manage their scoliosis.
The project aims to develop a solution that makes ‘Virtual Assessment and Management’ possible via a sophisticated App and Telehealth. The App supports a parent to take photos of their child, in their own home, that produce a detailed 3D model which is analysed by the App. using a custom algorithm. The App allows the surgeon to interact with the patients 3D spine model and extract all the required clinical measures needed to make clinical decisions, exactly as they would do with the child in a face-to-face appointment. Avoiding the cost and inconvenience for the families as well as the benefits and cost saving for the health system are clear and obvious, which resulted in Paige being awarded a prize for one of the best project pitches of the day, congratulations Paige and team!