Manipal Hospital partners with C LAB to raise awareness on Rheumatoid Arthritis

Noting that 14% of the Indian population seeks medical help for arthritis every year, Manipal Hospitals in association with C LAB launched an intuitive exercise module to raise awareness on Rheumatoid Arthritis.

On World Arthritis Day, the exercise module ‘Healing Touch’ was launched on a microsite that enables iPhone users to transform their phones into a platform that exercises their finger joints. The aim of this initiative isn’t to cure the disorder but to help senior citizens detect the early signs and build awareness among the larger audience.

Dr. Yogesh Preet Singh, Consultant, Rheumatology, Manipal Hospitals – Bengaluru, said, “Arthritis affects millions of people in India and the early signs are often overlooked by many. Moreover, we believe that medical care can go beyond convention and get integrated in our daily behaviours and habits. Smartphones are widespread these days and the Healing Touch exercise module used our familiarity with technology to keep the health of our fingers in check."

As Rheumatoid Arthritis targets the smaller joints first, Healing Touch leveraged the existing 3D touch technology present in select iOS devices to create an experience that emulates the pressing of everyday objects like a donut or a ketchup sachet on the phone screen. On pressing the screen, the tool measures the pressure exerted in grams and indicates if the exercise was successfully completed or not. Just like any other fitness routine, regular repetitions will ensure that a user’s fingers stay healthy and strong.

Gurbaksh Singh, Chief Creative Technologist, Dentsu Webchutney, said, “Technology is present in everyone’s hands these days, so why not use it as a device to promote health and precaution for ailments? We dived into the 3D Touch interface and just created a new usage for it. By drawing a parallel to real life objects, we tried to make the tool easy and comfortable to use for the audience we’re talking to. Our objective is to build awareness about rheumatoid arthritis and give rise to a healthy practice of exercising your fingers.”

Speaking on the association, Haresh Nayak, MD – C LAB, India, said, “Manipal Hospitals have served the people for about three decades and we feel privileged to be partnering with them on their journey to combat Arthritis. Using smartphones to develop healthy rituals is a great concept and I am assertive that a lot of consumers agree on the same because the early results have been very encouraging.”