The Spinal Cord Rehab Innovation Challenge
Challenge Description
Propose new tools to measure rehabilitation activities and their impact on function in individuals living with spinal cord injury (SCI).
Who Should Participate?
- Technology providers
- Individuals with lived experience
- Clinicians
- Researchers/Academia/Students
- Government/Public sector institutions
- Private sector organizations
Opportunity
- 1 award of $100,000
- 2 additional awards of $50,000
- Post-challenge: validation, scaling, and adoption-oriented activities
Click here for Challenge Rules – note updates due to COVID-19
What’s Happening Now?
Congratulations to the winners of this Challenge: The Kite Research Institute, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital (Pearl Interactives) and NCB-Lab at the University of Alberta. Read more about their innovative solutions here.
The Challenge
Spinal cord injury (SCI) impacts multiple body systems and functions, and can contribute to decreased participation and quality of life. Following a spinal cord injury, many individuals seek rehabilitation to improve and restore body function and independence.
Typically, physical rehabilitation consists of a series of routine exercises prescribed by a clinician. The objective of rehabilitation is to improve function (e.g. physical, cardiovascular, respiratory, etc.) so individuals can participate in meaningful daily activities.
However, there is a lack of accessible technologies that track rehabilitation activities and their resulting impact on function. As a result, the relative effectiveness of both traditional and newly-developed physical rehabilitation methods (such as activity-based therapy) after spinal cord injury is difficult to evaluate.
What are the gaps in understanding?
Data gathering in the rehabilitation context is inconsistent due to the absence of solutions that can effectively track and monitor rehabilitation activities and their impact on the function of individuals with SCI. Measurements of function act as a yardstick with which to monitor physical improvements by tracking changes in ability throughout the rehab process. The use of measurements of function to monitor patient progress is not widespread and often requires time-intensive observation by clinicians, yielding sometimes incomplete data.
This problem has made linking specific rehabilitation activities to improvements in function difficult, and has resulted in little evidence on the effectiveness of various rehabilitation treatments and approaches. From an individual perspective, this may translate to people with SCI not receiving the best possible treatment for their injury. Even worse, without a solution to clearly connect rehabilitation and progress, individuals may lose motivation to pursue further treatment.
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Structure
COVID-19 UPDATE: In lieu of submitting actual data and/or in-person stakeholder engagement information, participants may provide plans detailing how data and/or in-person stakeholder engagement information will be collected once related COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Note that completed data collection and stakeholder engagement (conducted in-person and virtually) will be evaluated alongside engagement plans.
For Submissions that include plans (instead of actual data or stakeholder engagement information), Judges will base their evaluations on plan feasibility and how implementation of the plan would fulfill the Challenge Judging Criteria.
Challenge Structure
The Spinal Cord Rehab Innovation Challenge seeks to improve on the measurement of rehabilitation activities and their resulting impact on individuals with SCI. More specifically, this challenge asks innovators to:
1. Propose a solution to improve quantification of one or more of the following rehabilitation activities, specifically for individuals with SCI.
a) Bed/seated control activities
b) Standing control activities
c) Walking, stairs (inside and/or outside)
d) Gross motor upper extremity (shoulder; elbow)
e) Fine motor upper extremity (elbow; forearm; wrist; hand)
2. Demonstrate the solution’s ability to measure the impact of rehabilitation activities on function in individuals with SCI. This challenge focuses on areas that are important to persons with lived experience and existing gaps in research and practice. Innovators should provide at least one measurement of function that is automatically generated via their solution AND at least one patient reported measurement of function. Categories include:
a) Physical function – e.g. strength, mobility, time able to stand independently, distance walked in 2 minutes etc.
b) Cardiovascular function – e.g. heart rate, blood pressure
c) Respiratory function – e.g. vital capacity, rating of perceived exertion
d) Other – e.g. spasticity, pain, sexual function, bowel, bladder, quality of life
The Spinal Cord Rehab Innovation Challenge also requires:
- that proposed solutions are validated in collaboration with individuals with lived experience (which may also include family members and caregivers); and
- a detailed description of participants and activities being measured.
Submission Format
Innovators must complete and submit the following:
- Submission Form (Updated)
- Data Overview Document (Updated)
- Video Demonstration
For additional details on these requirements and resources available to support, please see the Challenge Overview Document (Updated).
Post-Challenge
The challenge winner(s) will have an opportunity to further validate their solution in an academic or clinical setting through the formation of strategic partnerships with subject-matter experts and key-end user segments.
Timeline
Challenge Launch (14/11/2019)
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Informational Webinar #1 (11/12/2019)
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COVID-19 Q&A Session (02/06/2020)
Submission Deadline (19/11/2020)
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Winners Announcement (21/12/2020)
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Required for Submission
Additional Resources
FAQ
You may only enter the Challenge if at the time of entry you meet all of the below requirements:
- The primary applicant must be a legal resident of Canada
- You are at least 18 years old or the age of majority in the province or territory where you reside
- You are not an employee of MaRS, or the Praxis Spinal Cord Institute, and you are not the immediate family member of any such employee
Both individual and team submissions are welcome.
If you are applying as a member of a team, note that only one submission is required. Please identify a primary contact person on your team when completing the submission form. We ask that all team members sign up for individual profiles on marschallenges.com. There is no limit to the number of people on a team.
The innovator will retain all intellectual property rights.
No. All submissions are kept private and no details are shared with other competitors.
Given the great difficulties that COVID-19 has caused, the Challenge Rules have been updated as summarized below. For more information, please see the full Contest rules here.
- The deadline for submissions is extended to November 19, 2020 to accommodate the strain and limitations that physical distancing and other restrictions have placed on entrants.
- In lieu of submitting actual data and/or in-person stakeholder engagement information, entrants may provide plans detailing how data and/or in-person stakeholder engagement information will be collected once related COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Note that completed data collection and stakeholder engagement (conducted in-person and virtually) will be evaluated alongside engagement plans.
- For Submissions that include plans (instead of actual data or stakeholder engagement information), Judges will base their evaluations on plan feasibility and how implementation of the plan would fulfill the Challenge Judging Criteria.
- Top 3 Submissions will be announced no later than December 21, 2020.
If you have a question that is not answered in the FAQ, you can contact the challenge sponsor by e-mailing challenges@marsdd.com.
Challenge Updates
IMPORTANT: Changes to the Spinal Cord Rehab Innovation Challenge
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Thank you for your continued interest and engagement in the Challenge. Given the great difficulties that COVID-19 has caused, MaRS and Praxis have made the decision to amend the Challenge Rules as summarized below and described in the updated Challenge Rules:
- The deadline for submissions is extended to November 19, 2020 to accommodate the strain and limitations that physical distancing and other restrictions have placed on entrants.
- In lieu of submitting actual data and/or in-person stakeholder engagement information, entrants may provide plans detailing how data and/or in-person stakeholder engagement information will be collected once related COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Note that completed data collection and stakeholder engagement (conducted in-person and virtually) will be evaluated alongside engagement plans.
- For Submissions that include plans (instead of actual data or stakeholder engagement information), Judges will base their evaluations on plan feasibility and how implementation of the plan would fulfill the Challenge Judging Criteria.
- Top 3 Submissions will be announced no later than December 21, 2020.
For more information about changes to the Spinal Cord Rehab Innovation Challenge in light of COVID-19, please refer to the updated Challenge rules and submission form, and attend the Q&A session hosted by the MaRS Innovation Challenges team on Tuesday, June 2 from 12:00 – 1:00pm ET. Details below.
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Q&A session: Spinal Cord Rehab Innovation Challenge and COVID-19
Many of you may have questions about COVID-19 related updates made to the Spinal Cord Rehab Innovation Challenge (e.g. extending deadlines and substituting plans for actual data), and what this means for your submission. As such, MaRS and Praxis will be holding a Q&A session on Tuesday, June 2 from 12:00 – 1:00pm ET, to answer all queries and concerns. Please register for the session below:
Informational Webinar #2
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Join our second informational webinar on January 22 from 12-1pm ET to learn more about the Spinal Cord Rehab Innovation Challenge and have your questions answered live. Reserve your spot for this webinar below:
If you have any questions, please contact challenges@marsdd.com
Team-Building Support
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Informational Webinar #1
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MaRS and Praxis Spinal Cord Institute are pleased to invite you to an informational webinar for the Spinal Cord Rehab Innovation Challenge — a $200K competition asking innovators to propose new tools to measure rehabilitation activities and their impact on function in individuals living with spinal cord injury (SCI).
Join us on December 11 to learn more about the Spinal Cord Rehab Innovation Challenge and hear tips on how to create a successful submission. Interested applicants can reserve their spot for the webinar below:
Hope to see you there! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact challenges@marsdd.com