A two-stage approach to bring the postural assessment to masses: The KISS-Health Project

The human body is in a posture every minute of every day: it can be static, such as when resting, or dynamic, such as when walking. It is quite frequent that people assume poor postures during the day and they make their bodies more susceptible to injuries. Considering this, prevention assumes a central role as it can avoid damage and pain in day-to-day life, but it is very poorly practiced in the majority of countries, even in the Western world. Moreover, diagnosis and assessments for postural abnormalities are demanded to few specialized centers, which usually perform anecdotal or subjective evaluations. In this paper, we propose an innovative model to face up to postural abnormalities starting from a two-stage approach that have been conceived and are being implemented by the KISS-Health Project. The idea consists of two units: a) the Mobile Diagnostic System, which is composed of both hardware and software components and it will permit a first assessment of human posture in order to identify people at risk; b) the Laboratory Diagnostic System, which will investigate more accurately the complete postural configuration of the subject going under exam. It is our goal to promote an integrated approach that, based on scientific and economical evidences, will reduce the costs related to postural abnormalities.