Redefining Physical Therapy Through the Metaverse: Immergo Labs Makes Waves With Their First Demo at APTA CSM 2022

Immergo Lab’s Founders and Advisor Pictured Right to Left: Aviv Elor (Co-Founder and Principal Investigator), Ash Robbins (Co-Founder and AI Lead), Sean Wells (Strategic Physical Therapy Advisor), and Michael Powell (Co-Founder and Biomechanics Lead). Not Pictured: Greg Gewickey (Strategic Media Advisor), Sri Kurniawan (UX Advisor), and Mircea Teodorescu (Biomechanics Advisor)

Immergo Labs Cofounders at APTA CSM 2022. Pictured from Left to Right: Ash Robbins (Co-Founder and AI Lead), Aviv Elor (Co-Founder and Principal Investigator), and Michael Powell (Co-Founder and Biomechanics Lead)

Santa Cruz Accelerates member, Immergo Labs, creators of metaverse based physical rehabilitation tools, have just completed their first MVP demo and presented at the largest physical rehabilitation in the United States. Last week, founders Aviv Elor, Michael Powell, and Ash Robbins attended with Strategic Physical Therapy Advisor Sean Wells, DPT, to present at the 2022 American Physical Therapy Association Combined Sections Meeting. The conference was an opportunity to talk with more therapists and to validate product-market fit and demo a first-time MVP.  Immergo was invited to present by APTA-HPA in their Technopalooza portion of the conference, where Immergo was able to have 32 therapists demo their Beyond Platform for the first time and provide anonymous feedback through a survey.  The diverse set of participants had a 100% completion rate of the demo with 75% of the users having little to no virtual reality experience.  Additionally, Immergo’s founders were able to conduct another 100 surveys of therapists to understand their greatest needs and telehealth was at the top of the list.  

Immergo Labs presenting at APTA CSM 2022’s Technopalooza: A Playground for Clinical, Assistive, and Educational Technology for Physical Therapists. Immergo evaluated their MVP, the Immergo Beyond Telehealth Platform, with 32 physical therapists from diverse backgrounds.

Immergo Labs is bringing physical therapy to the metaverse by creating a telehealth platform that addresses the shortcomings of conventional videoconferencing style platforms therapists have encountered the last couple of years.  Current 2D platforms make it difficult for physical therapists to obtain quantifiable metrics like range of motion, joint torques, or balance assessment.  Immergo aims to assist therapists by providing these metrics in runtime so patients can be properly evaluated using telehealth.  Remote care increases accessibility for patients, provides convenience with less commuting, and can help increase the number of touch points between therapist and patient.  Immergo is supported by a Phase I National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research (NSF SBIR) Grant to develop a next-generation therapy platform. 

The Immergo Beyond Telehealth Platform connects physical therapists and patients remotely through off-the-shelf virtual reality headsets. Remote evaluations can be performed synchronously or asynchronously using Immergo’s Artificial Intelligence algorithms for instantaneous range of motion and muscle torque analysis. 

Immergo’s platform was a first-ever prototype, at the APTA CSM 2022 demo, that was developed from over 200 customer discovery interviews with therapists to understand their greatest needs. A recurring theme throughout the conference was the necessity for remote monitoring and analysis tools with physical rehabilitation. Therapists need a platform that allows them to treat many types of patients which necessitates several types of metrics, needs to be easy to use, and can be incorporated into their existing practice.  Another major topic of the conference was the advantages of a hybrid model that incorporates some in-person care and then using telehealth to do follow-up appointments.  Immergo is designed for this model of care that helps both patients and therapists.  

Moving Forward

Immergo Labs are continuing to develop their platform with various large-scale validation studies to start in April. Now that they have identified and validated their customer segments, built their prototype, and are moving to their validation studies they have a new announcement! Immergo has officially launched their waitlist on https://www.immergo.ai/ for any interested physical rehabilitation professionals and are offering a free 30 days to the first 100 users who sign up.

Immergo Labs will also be applying to the next phase of their NSF SBIR Grant in the fall. They are seeking Angel investments to help speed up the development process and get their platform to market. Immergo invites those interested in their mission to get involved by contacting them at info@immergolabs.com. 
Immergo Labs would like to thank and acknowledge the following organizations for their support: NSF SBIR, Santa Cruz Accelerates, Startup Sandbox, CITRIS Foundry, Wilmerhale Startup Launchpad, and UC Santa Cruz.