The MUJO system was found to add several benefits for patients and clinicians in a recent acceptability study undertaken by the upper limb therapies team at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust.

The MUJO system has now been used for over one hundred inpatients and outpatients at the leading NHS tertiary referral centre for MSK disorders to date, and 10 patients and 7 physiotherapists were interviewed as part of the study.

The results, which will be presented to the public during 2017, indicated potential benefits including:

  • Reduction in the number of physiotherapy sessions required
  • Improved compliance through ability to monitor progress
  • Higher levels of patient engagement and self-management

The study took place over a 9 month period from February to October 2016 after the RNOH team had worked with MUJO to support the development of the ‘connected’ technology for use in the NHS.

Following these early results, the hospital is now implementing a pilot staff screening and exercise program to support the hospital’s own staff to stay injury free and productive as part of the hospital’s wellbeing programme.

Both studies are included in the NIHR Research Portfolio, and will provide pilot data for further large-scale comparative trials assessing the cost effectiveness of making the devices available in a community setting.

Consultant Physiotherapist and Chief Investigator for the study Anju Jaggi explained,

“We now use the MUJO system as a tool for providing objective markers to assess patients and measure progress. Patients love the real-time feedback, and we were nicely surprised that some were prepared to travel quite large distances to use the equipment”.

An RNOH Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon, who participated in the study said,

“After an initial session with Anju it was as if she was there with me while I was doing my exercises. I have no doubt the MUJO system helped me return to the operating theatre faster than I would have normally”.

Clinical Research Physiotherapist and co-author of the report Anthony Gilbert stated,

“We are looking forward to presenting the full results at a number of conferences in 2017 and submitting our report for publication in an open source journal to help disseminate these results to the clinical community”.

The study was supported with co-funding from Innovate UK after the consortium led by MUJO which includes the University of Manchester Health eResearch Centre and care pathway management IT specialist Lumeon, were awarded £0.4m of collaborative R&D funding as part of the ‘Digital Health in a Connected Hospital’ funding call in 2014.

Following completion of the study and validation of the technology from early customers including the English Institute of Sport, MUJO will be launching its data-driven MSK service, delivered via its proprietary ‘smart’ connected exercise devices and cloud data analytics in Q1 2017.

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