61571DataGait: Gait as a Measure of Functional Mobility on DischargeClosedFeasibility StudiesInnovate UKThis project is developing a user friendly App, which measures walking using your own phone, which can be used by clinicians and patients in the community, following discharge and/or recovering from COVID-19, to objectively measure their walking-quality, a key health indicator. We are learning about how COVID-19 affects people, but we now know that for some people it can be a long term illness with a slow recovery. People with ‘long covid’ experience a range of symptoms including fatigue, breathlessness during physical activity such as walking, tachycardia, pain and neuralgia. Patients with or recovering from COVID-19 adopt a walking style where they curb energy expenditure; this can be detected by gait analysis, by objectively measuring indirect cardio-respiratory functioning and fatigue. Walking is influenced by various complex interactions of the body's physical functioning, and can provide in-depth information on wellbeing and the general health status of an individual. NHS physiotherapists have identified the need for a system to monitor mobility alongside more specific individual assessments of breathlessness to guide their decision making in the treatment of these patients. Currently, specific walking tests are used clinically in a subjective way; we propose a remote monitoring system that will allow end-users to monitor their own health status, by capturing objective data for analysis, reporting, and feedback to clinicians. The system will use clinically validated and accepted measures of endurance and movement ability, via standardised tests including 10 metre and 2-minute walks. By instrumenting these tests with existing smartphone sensors, they will be objective providing both temporal (timing) and spatial (distance and walking speed) walking outcomes which have clinical value and use. In addition, our system will offer patients a means to capture a range of other measures to form an electronic ‘recovery diary’. This data will be shared with expert clinician therefore obtaining objective and longitudinal information which would support clinical decision making and risk assessments for people with suspected, confirmed or at risk of COVID-19. With the demand on frontline NHS staff ever increasing, and with most non-urgent out-patient appointments postponed, physiotherapists have specifically requested an application like this to be developed and deployed. We will work with key stakeholders, clinicians, end-users as well as world-renowned academics, to deliver a product which can be tested and deployed within six months from project start, and which can be adapted for other existing clinical conditions and recurring epidemics and pandemics to come. This gait technology was previously supported by InnovateUK ICURe26 (https://icure.uk/) to market validate, with contacts made with 100 health professionals and organisations and business leaders around the world.