Fall 2025 Monday Bootcamp 1.0 KneeSense Arthritis Care Device

Project Owner: Akhila Nalladimma

Email: akhilanalladimma@gmail.com 

Nearly 1 in 4 adults in America suffers from arthritis, making it a major cause of disability in the country. The related pain, stiffness, and compromised mobility impose a foreboding burden on quality of life, limiting people's ability to work, exercise, and even perform everyday activities. Despite this prevalence, patients struggle to obtain timely or routine checks on their condition since doctor consultations are oftentimes weeks or months apart. This leaves physicians poorly informed with up-to-date information and patients unsupported during flares, causing unnecessary complications.

This is why we want to construct KneeSense, a new intersection of wearable technology and digital medicine that makes arthritis care a real-time, data-driven process.

KneeSense is a smart arthritis knee support paired with a smartphone app that provides immediate feedback regarding knee health. The support uses lightweight, nonintrusive sensors that monitor key parameters such as inflammation, joint stability, and movement patterns. These are input to both patient and doctor, creating a closed loop for enhanced monitoring, earlier intervention, and reduced reliance on serial clinic visits.

Unlike the majority of knee braces that are now on the market and provide mechanical support alone, KneeSense fuses structural support with advanced monitoring. Our unique feature is bringing hardware and software together in one device: the synergy of a wearable brace and real-time health data collection.

As it advances, KneeSense can be adapted to other high-stress joints that are often affected by arthritis, such as the wrist, elbow, and shoulder. This creates the potential for an expandable product line treating a range of disability relating to joints. The long-term vision is developing an ecosystem of wearable aid that not only reduces physical stress but also actively informs care decisions through real-time monitoring.

We will target both the clinical and consumer markets. From the consumer viewpoint, KneeSense offers patients and caregivers an engaged solution to more effectively manage arthritis in the home environment, reducing unnecessary visits to the office and providing users with confidence. From the clinical viewpoint, orthopedic clinics and rheumatology offices can tap into our platform to enhance monitoring, reduce administrative inefficiency, and enhance patient engagement. Through a subscription model, we can make cost more accessible and ensure that technology remains sustainable and scalable.

Accuracy, safety, and privacy are central to our mission. We will collaborate with physicians and biomedical engineers to test the accuracy of our sensors and algorithms, and patient information will be encrypted and anonymized securely in line with HIPAA and relevant medical standards.

Our plans for the future include clinical trials of the brace, app development, and expansion of joint support products to additional joints. With KneeSense, we are transforming arthritis care with the combination of wearable support and real-time health data, which allows patients to live more freely, independently, and with confidence.