Monitoring the movements of the heart and lungs during sleep and using AI (artificial intelligence) to estimate the next day’s health based on that information. Rehabilitation3.0 Inc. (Rehabilitation3.0) offers a service that applies this broadly in healthcare, starting with medical and nursing care settings, and in other industries as well, to help people stay healthy and perform better. We spoke with CEO Hirokazu Masuda, who says, “We want to deliver a healthy future to people around the world with the power of AI.”
Finding and predicting changes in physical condition to improve health
The word “rehabilitation” originally means “a person returning to being themselves again.” Our service uses AI technology to analyze each person’s “condition that day” and apply it to nursing care, medicine, and health promotion, with the aim of “regaining and maintaining who that person is.”
Specifically, we measure vital signs during sleep (heart rate, breathing rate, and body movement), and from that data estimate 13 motor abilities, such as walking and eating, and 5 cognitive abilities, such as memory and judgment, each on a three-level scale. This shows what kind of watching over or assistance the person will need in what situations the next morning, and even signs of dementia.
The accuracy of estimated motor and cognitive abilities based on past data is over 85%. This is almost on par with the assessment of a therapist with more than 10 years of experience. By accumulating this data, we can estimate 1.2 million patterns of health risks tailored to each person and suggest exercise programs.
We are convinced that our service, which finds changes in physical condition, predicts poor health, and suggests ways to improve health, is needed not only in nursing care but in many other settings, and we are now preparing for a full launch of the service in April 2024.
“Predicting” the condition of older people also helps staff care workers appropriately
For example, data on people aged 85 and over shows that about 20% of them have day-to-day “fluctuations” in their condition. From these “fluctuations,” our technology predicts who is likely to do what on a given day, which helps prevent accidents before they happen.
Specifically, in nursing care, it predicts dangers such as “Resident A might fall near the bed today” or “Resident B might trip while walking,” so that watching over and assistance can be provided appropriately. As a result, staff know “who needs particular attention today,” which leads not only to the safety of facility users but also to appropriate staffing of care workers and a better working environment.
In Japan, with its declining birthrate and aging population, shortages of care workers and therapists are an urgent issue. In this situation, our service uses the power of technology to make visible changes in physical condition that people themselves may not notice or be able to put into words, so that people can properly be there where they are needed. We believe it is a technology that can cover what the care robots and watch-over sensors developed so far could not.
Another strength of our service is that it is device-free. It works with almost all devices, such as existing sensor mats, smartwatches, and watch-over sensors, so there is no need to prepare new ones.
Within the next 10 years, more than 30 countries and regions around the world are expected to become “super-aged societies,” where people aged 65 and over make up 21% of the population, so we believe there is demand for our service worldwide.
As a back-end system supporting people’s health
I started out as an occupational therapist at a general hospital. Working in many rehabilitation settings, including outpatient, inpatient, and home visits, I realized the need for ICT in medical and nursing care. Simply switching from paper medical records to electronic ones brings big benefits: less work and fewer errors from copying, easier sharing, and, as a result, more time with patients.
I then left the hospital, and at the home-visit rehabilitation company I first founded, I actively pushed DX. Rehabilitation3.0 is the company I founded to take this practice further and bring technology using AI to the field.
We think this technology can be used not only in medical and nursing care but also by combining industry data from various fields with the health data we have.
Combined with data from transportation companies such as taxi and bus operators, it can help prevent accidents and improve drivers’ health. The possible uses are endless: predicting changes in children’s condition, managing athletes’ condition, helping working-age people stay healthy and suggesting exercise, and more.
Going forward, we want to work with many companies to spread it in society so that it becomes a back-end system supporting healthy lives for everyone. And we want to keep moving forward without forgetting our original aim: “to make people around the world healthy and happy.”
How We Used OIH
In 2020, we joined the first cohort of “Osaka City University (now Osaka Metropolitan University) Healthcare Startups,” an acceleration program specializing in the use of technology in healthcare. Then in 2021, we were selected for the 11th cohort of the “OIH Startup Acceleration Program (OSAP).” Both programs expanded our network, and people we met there still help us today as mentors and advisors.
Interview date: December 5, 2023
(Interview and text: Aya Iwamura)