VSimulators awarded £2.5 million grant to help reduce impact of falls

We were delighted to read that our customer VSimulators, the cutting-edge University of Exeter research facility, has been awarded a major research grant worth over £2.5 million by the European Research Council. Read the full announcement on the University of Exeter’s website.

VSimulators, which opened in 2020 and includes the world’s largest array of AMTI force plates, will use this grant for research aiming to find new ways of preventing older people from falling.

About the project

It is estimated that one-third of the population aged 65 years will fall in a year, rising to more than fifty percent of people aged 80 years and older. About a quarter of those falling will suffer a life-changing injury.

A new project, called STEPPING OUT, aims to discover more about the mechanisms of gait instability and falls risk in older people, including how they use their senses to gather information about the world around them and use this to control movements. This understanding will inform future developments to intervene and prevent falls. The interdisciplinary team is led by Principal Investigator Professor Sallie Lamb at the University of Exeter in collaboration with Professor Clemens Becker at the University of Heidelberg.

In the past, researchers have been limited by an inability to collect real-time data on falls, as they occur randomly and unexpectedly. However, new technology has opened up ways to generate real-life scenarios enabling researchers to examine the motions behind falls. The research will use the University of Exeter’s globally unique research facility, VSimulators, in which researchers use a moving platform and virtual reality to trigger and monitor falls in a safe and controlled environment, to discover what happens in the body. The research team will be precisely measuring brain, muscular and movement processes.

Professor Sallie Lamb, Principal Investigator at the University of Exeter and Director of the NIHR Exeter Biomedical Research Centre, which is supporting the research, said:

“Falling can have a devastating impact on the lives of older people, and for those whose mobility is compromised, the fear of falling can mean they’re reluctant to leave the house, leading to isolation. If we can understand more about how and why people fall, we can find new ways to keep people mobile and stable, and make a radical improvement in reducing falls.

This is really exciting news for University of Exeter, and will consolidate our position as world leaders in the analysis of human movement in a range of different conditions and situations.”

STEPPING OUT was one of 1,647 applications received by the European Research Council (ERC) for an Advanced Grant.

The ERC Advanced Grant will support STEPPING OUT’s research into generating unique scientific discoveries aimed at improving fall prevention interventions for older people. The science will provide transformative effects with a fifty per cent target in reduction of falls.

The funding is awarded to researchers with ambitious, curiosity-driven projects that could lead to major scientific breakthroughs. They are awarded to established, leading researchers with a proven track-record of significant research achievements over the past decade.

Maria Leptin, an ERC representative said: “We’re thrilled to announce the funding of 218 advanced grants to outstanding research leaders across Europe, totalling £478 million. We look forward to seeing the results of the new projects in the years to come, with many likely to lead to breakthroughs and new advances.”

About VSimulators

Located at Exeter Science Park, the University of Exeter VSimulators facility is a new ‘super force plate’ which can recreate any environment either physically or virtually, immersing up to nine research volunteers in a simultaneous experience.

We caught up with the VSimulators team back in 2020 in a two-part series exploring their state-of-the-art facilities, how their technology will be used, and the vital real-world impact their research will have. Read part one here.

Julie Lewis-Thompson, Commercial Manager at VSimulators, said in the series: “We have an 8m x 8m chamber, and within that is a 4m x 4m Octopod motion platform which can move on six degrees of freedom. Across this motion platform we have what we believe is the world’s largest array of custom-made AMTI force plates. This array creates one giant force plate to deliver a fully instrumented floor, capable of comprehensive data capture and analysis. We can also simultaneously immerse up to nine occupants in a virtual environment using VivePro headsets, which correlates with the motion on the floor. Full motion body capture is available through a body suit supported by an array of 16 cameras. This enables the capability to feed data in from existing environments, and then extract data in terms of human responses in reaction to that environment. This information is then synchronised frame by frame and presented to the research team for analysis.”

Contact us

Summit Medical and Scientific are the UK sales partner for AMTI, the global leader in multi-axis force measurement and testing solutions. We worked with VSimulators and the University of Exeter to install the world’s largest array of AMTI force plates.

If you’d like to find out more about how you can use AMTI force plates in your research, please contact us, send us an email or give us a call on 01372 459863.

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