AnyExercise

AnyExercise encourages the elderly to exercise at home. We engage with users through gamification, guiding them into correct forms via pose detection and a simple UI which makes it easy for seniors.

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CONFIRMATION: We are an officially registered team for Melbourne Hack 2021

  • Justin Lee
  • Anqi Wang
  • Kiet Nguyen
  • Sophie Tang

Any exercise is better than no exercise

Inspiration

With consecutive lockdowns in Melbourne, closure of public spaces and gyms, it has become increasingly difficult for elderly people such as our grandparents to find motivation to exercise, as it has simply become too inconvenient.

Background

Falling has always been a concern for older people. The Australian and New Zealand Falls Prevention Society found that for those over 65 years old, falls account for 40% of injury-related deaths. According to Better Health Victoria, many older people stop physical exercise due to beliefs that exercise is no longer appropriate. Common misconceptions include:

  • Older people are frail and physically weak.
  • The human body doesn’t need as much physical activity as it ages.
  • Exercising is hazardous for older people because they may injure themselves.
  • Only vigorous and sustained exercise is of any use.

However, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Better Health Victoria estimates that a lack of physical activity accounts for about half of the physical decline associated with ageing such as reduced muscle mass, strength and physical endurance, coordination and balance, joint flexibility and mobility, and bone strength.

It is also recommended that even small amounts of continuous exercise will decrease risk of falls and fall related injuries, thus coining our slogan "any exercise is better than no exercise". The 2016 Age Care Royal Commission has made calls for a new system underpinned by a rights-based Act, shifting away from the current ration-based system and moving towards an allocated care according to their personal needs and preferences, whether at home or in residential care. Staying at home rather than age cares means that there is no centralized access to an resident physio therapist, making in-home physiotherapy costly and inconvenient. Although AnyExercise cannot replace a physio therapist, it can decrease visits through assisting in determining correct form and reaching set goals.

Features/What it does

AnyExercise is a web platform that utilises AI pose detection to determine correct form during exercises. AnyExercise is designed to motivate older people to engage with their health and reduce fall-related injuries. Additionally, the targeted challenges and trackers encourage older people to create a healthy habit and consistent pattern of physical activity. Pose detection during exercises gives real time feedback on your progression of the activity. A clean and minimalistic UI aids older users in tracking their progress with each exercise and also a visual guide on correctly matching the pose. Users will also be able to link their screens to bigger monitors such as their TV so that they can do exercise right from their living room. While AnyExercise falls under MedTech, we have added visual elements such as achievements and progress bars to gamify the experience. This is backed by a 2016 study by the American Association of Retired Persons and the Entertainment Software Association which found 38% of Americans aged above 50 played video games.

What we learned

This is our first Hackathon for the majority of our team and so our journey began with an overly optimistic start which was followed by a mad scramble as the deadline drew closer. This is the first time we worked with much of the technology such as computer vision, Python Flask, OpenCV, MediaPipe and BlazePose.

How we built it

The project was first initialised using python flask as the framework to allow the project to be deployable to the web. Building upon this we referenced the Mediapipe library and incorporated their BlazePose technology to detect movement and OpenCV to read the video capture device; this allowed us to calculate angles between key points such as left leg, hip and shoulder to determine whether the user’s pose is ‘correct’. Additionally, python flask allowed for easy integration with Bootstrap, ensuring that our solution was both functional and designed well.

Challenges Faced

Some challenges we faced were understanding how pose detection worked, integrating pose detection with a website, choosing a video software for video creation.

What’s next?

Ability to create custom exercises by uploading a video demonstrating a correct example.

Q & A

How will AnyExercise be implemented within old computer systems?/n Provided the legacy system has a webcam, AnyExercise will work on any web browser.

What are the costs and future timeline of your product? We plan on having a subscription revenue model where seniors or their carers can purchase AnyExercise on a monthly, annually or multi-year basis. In the future, we plan to partner with age-care facilities in expanding their service offerings.

How will you gauge the success of your product and what is the product market fit analysis? Using client retention rates and product usage intervals will gauge both the success of our product and its product market fit. Additionally, a referral incentive will be implemented to attract new customers and measure current customer satisfaction.

How does your product differentiate from competitors in the field? Currently, other solutions in the market simply do not tailor towards the elderly. Aerobic games such as Wii sports, Just Dance and Ringfit are targeted at a younger audience and can be too rigorous for seniors. Our product tackles this niche by ensuring that the exercises are senior friendly, yet beneficial, since even a little bit of exercise can reduce falls and fall-related injuries.

How will the social features work? Users will be able to add friends through their dashboard. They can interact with each other by chatting online or challenging each other in exercises.

How many exercises will be implemented? The solution will launch with a set amount of exercises pre-coded into the system, with the option for users to upload video/exercise poses to create an ever expanding list of exercises to choose from.

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