Elite athletes are preparing to hit peak performance in 2012 for the London Olympics. Today this means more than nutritional and training support and includes a comprehensive and ongoing programme of body monitoring and healthcare checks.
While it is relatively easy to monitor athletes activities in a laboratory, to date it has been less simple to take this monitoring onto the field of play. Yet this is where it is needed most. It is impossible to replicate what happens in a football match or a 100 metre sprint effectively in laboratory conditions. Typically, full body performance monitoring has involved being linked to a machine, with a number of obtrusive devices connected to the body – hardly the best preparation for competitive activity.
Toumaz, a company based near Oxford, is aiming to change this with its Sensium range of body monitoring products. The company has launched technology for elite athletes that enables them to be monitored continuously and in real time. Sensium based devices are wearable and upload information about athlete performance wirelessly during events. Toumaz claims it is small enough that the athlete will hardly notice it is there.
While the impact could be considerable for sportsmen and women aiming to compete in 2012, Kelly Wang, marketing manager at Toumaz, claims that this constant body monitoring could provide a wider social benefit. “The number of people worldwide aged over 65 now tops a billion and is still growing. As society ages we will need to get better at managing our healthcare – and this will demand an increase in ongoing monitoring rather than regular (and expensive) trips to the doctors or hospital. Sensium enables people to manage serious but non-threatening illnesses like high blood pressure or diabetes from their home, knowing that their healthcare is being monitored to the highest levels of medical compliance.”
Toumaz is joining the UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) e-health and telemedicine trade mission to China in July. This scoping mission enables the company to understand the current Chinese market for telemedicine and to speak directly to companies interested in developing systems for health monitoring at home or in care homes. “The ageing population is particularly relevant to China,” continued Wang. “Managing the healthcare needs of 1.3 billion people is not possible without some form of e-health. I believe that the market dynamics there will teach us a great deal about what we can expect across the globe.”
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