Celestra Health Systems

Celestra Health Systems is a cloud-based gait analysis platform designed to monitor neurological conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Parkinson's Disease. The platform has been designated by the FDA as a Class II medical device and uses machine learning algorithms to quantitatively measure patient mobility in real-world, free-living conditions. Celestra Health's customers include global pharmaceutical firms, research institutions, and healthcare providers, and the company has conducted nine clinical trials across four countries — the US, UK, Germany, and Canada — in collaboration with neurologists and patient advisors.

Walking quality, or gait, is consistently ranked by patients as the top factor affecting quality of life, and by clinicians as a primary indicator of disease condition changes. Celestra Health's platform is built around the premise that continuous, real-world gait monitoring can detect subtle changes in disease progression earlier than conventional clinical assessments, potentially enabling intervention before irreversible neurological damage occurs.

Core Technology and Measurement Capabilities

• Uses smart insoles equipped with gyroscopes, accelerometers, and pressure sensors to collect movement data, supplemented by data from smartphones and smartwatches.
• Measures over 400 aspects of a patient's gait at a rate of up to 200 times per second.
• Applies proprietary AI algorithms trained on the world's largest database of walking samples collected under free-living conditions from patients with neurological conditions.
• Derives insights from straight-line walking, turning, stair ascending and descending, and standing.
• Performs fatiguability and gait phenotype measurements, including foot drops, dorsiflexion, circumduction, steppage, and freezing of gait.
• Assigns a composite walking quality score between 0 and 100 to each session, aggregating over 400 low-level gait metrics into a single index accessible to clinicians.
• Clinical trials have demonstrated accuracy equivalent to a multi-million-dollar gait laboratory — a concept the company refers to as "Gait Lab in a Shoe."

Advantages Over Conventional Gait Laboratories

• Measures walking under real-world, free-living conditions rather than controlled laboratory settings.
• Tracks trends over time rather than capturing a single moment in time, which is particularly relevant for neurological conditions where symptoms fluctuate.
• Offers greater patient convenience, with no requirement to attend a specialist facility.
• Costs approximately one-hundredth of a conventional gait laboratory.
• Can detect changes in disease condition within a three-month period that may only appear in standard clinical assessments after twelve months.
• Supports pharmaceutical firms in assessing drug therapy effectiveness more quickly than previously possible.

Smart Insole Design and Comparison with Other Wearables

• Smart insoles are placed inside a patient's everyday footwear and automatically activate when movement is detected.
• Measure pressure exerted by different areas of the foot, as well as acceleration and rotational movement in three dimensions.
• Provide more reliable and accurate measurements than strap-based sensors, which do not measure pressure and may not be attached in the same position from day to day.
• Offer better usability compared with strap-based systems, as patients are not required to attach multiple sensors to specific body locations such as wrists, ankles, sternum, or lumbar regions.
• Supplement insole data with movement data from smartwatches and smartphones to increase accuracy, while going beyond what wrist- or pocket-based devices alone can capture for neurological monitoring.

How the Platform Works

1. The patient places smart insoles in their everyday footwear; the insoles wake automatically when movement is detected.
2. Walking data — including pressure, acceleration, and rotation — is collected during normal daily activities.
3. Data is securely transmitted to the Celestra Health cloud, where AI algorithms are applied to measure walking quality and identify patterns.
4. Personalized insights are delivered to the patient via the Celestra Health smartphone app.
5. Clinicians access results through a secure cloud-based web portal.
6. In the event of signs of significant disease progression, the clinician is automatically notified, potentially triggering a change in treatment.
7. Recommended usage is five to fifteen minutes of walking three times per week.

Usability and Clinical Design

• Designed in consultation with a global team of patients and clinicians from institutions including Harvard Medical School (US), Bart's Health / Royal London Hospital (UK), University of Edinburgh (UK), Technical University of Dresden (Germany), and The Ottawa Hospital (Canada).
• Achieved a patient usability rating of 85% measured over twelve months of continuous use.
• Presents clinicians with a composite walking score rather than raw low-level gait metrics, enabling at-a-glance assessment of changes over time.
• Designed for both at-home monitoring and in-clinic assessments.

The Celestra Health platform requires a prescription, and costs may be covered in part or in full through a patient's health insurance provider or government health plan. The company is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, with a regional office in Newport, Wales, UK.