Point Motion Uses Music-Based Games to Help Children Enjoy Physical Therapy

Kevin Clark was always a musician. The Berklee College of Music grad followed his dream to make music and arranging for orchestras until his cousin ended up paralyzed from the waist down following a motorcycle accident. His cousin quickly fell into depression.

After his doctor prescribed Clark’s cousin a few daily stretches, Clark thought incorporating music could help his cousin process and enjoy his physical therapy. Music therapy has prevailed as an evidence-based option to help motor function, communication capabilities, reduce pain, and other individualized goals when used under the guidance of a professional.

Clark connected his motion control camera to his computer and synced a different song to each stretch. “Music was something that helped me get out of the most the deepest and darkest moments of my life,” Clark tells Hypepotamus.

As Clark’s cousin did his stretches and the computer captured them, it would track his movements and move through the songs. After great feedback from his cousin, Clark realized that there was a large market for incorporating music into physical therapy. More specifically, he focused on therapy for special needs children, through gesture-based prompts as a complement to in-person therapy.

“Right now in the U.S., less than 15 percent of children who might be at risk for having a developmental delay get assessed by a specialist. There aren’t enough specialists to actually be with each child. Also, all of this is being done on handwritten assessments,” he says.

Clark founded Point Motion to commercialize the technology and help pediatric specialists and parents do their assessments remotely and track progress more effectively, versus waiting for a doctor’s next available appointment. There’s no additional equipment required, as it uses the computer or phone’s video camera to track movements and development.

Point Motion’s games aim to help children with development or movement delays, communication challenges, autism, and other issues by letting them use their own movements to get ahead of the game. “Each game is a tool to be leveraged by a health or education specialist into their specialized curriculum,” says Clark.

The first game, Helping Friends, uses music and pre-selected movement prompts to assess a child’s psychomotor skills during key periods and measure the impact of ongoing treatments.

The game asks children to duplicate a movement and when they do, it plays the song’s next chord. “It’s like they’re conducting an orchestra through their body movements,” he says.

Simultaneously, the AI-powered platform captures range of motion, reaction time, endurance, attention span, repetition, and more through the camera. Clark hopes to expand Point Motion’s customer base to seniors as well.

The Winston-Salem startup does not store patient data. All metrics are imported directly into a patient’s health records.

Point Motion completed a pilot with the Boston Public School system back in 2015 that saw significant results in reducing tantrums and reversing negative behaviors in students. They’re currently in the last phase of their pilot at a New York children’s healthcare system to test the latest iteration of the platform.

Moving forward, Clark targets a main customer base of treatment, physical therapy, and autism-focused centers with therapists on staff using the SaaS tool. Point Motion will also offer this to parents for a low fee. The company plans to onboard a total of 10 locations by the end of 2019, with a goal of 250 in 2020.

After moving to Winston-Salem from Boston earlier this year, the startup raised a seed round. The funds are currently earmarked for customer acquisition, increase partnerships, and customer app improvements.