Driven by a rapid demographic shift toward an aging population, healthcare systems across Chile face growing demand for specialized rehabilitation and independence-focused care. With the National Institute of Statistics (INE) projecting life expectancy to exceed 85 years by 2050, developing modern, scalable public health strategies has become vital to supporting long-term functional autonomy for older citizens.
Standardizing functional ability assessments remains a major challenge in modern rehabilitation. Because current diagnostic tools depend largely on subjective clinical observations, results often vary between evaluators—highlighting the need for objective, reliable evaluation methods in elder care.
Addressing this challenge directly, Dr. Britam Gómez proposes a novel methodology leveraging markerless motion capture (MoCap) through his Fondecyt Initiation project. By tracking and evaluating body movement without attached sensors or physical markers, this technology enables comfortable, highly accurate mobility analysis tailored for older adults.
“The goal is to develop a tool that allows for a more precise assessment of people’s functional and cognitive independence, using biomechanical data obtained during everyday activities,” explained Dr. Gómez.
The study evaluates participants across structured functional tasks—including walking, turning, sitting-to-standing, and climbing stairs—to capture key stability and balance metrics. By processing these movement patterns, the research team is training automated predictive models that analyze human biomechanics to accurately assess varying degrees of functional and cognitive independence.
“The main advantages are an objective, data-driven assessment; greater accuracy and reproducibility; shorter assessment times; and the fact that it does not require sensors or markers on the body,” noted the researcher.
Spanning three years, the Fondecyt initiative follows a structured, three-stage roadmap: initial validation of the markerless tracking system, mapping key biomechanical indicators of functional independence, and constructing an automated diagnostic model for clinical implementation.
The Fondecyt Initiation project brings together experts from the University of Concepción, Rey Juan Carlos University in Spain, and Usach’s School of Kinesiology. This international partnership strengthens an interdisciplinary bridge between engineering and health sciences, fostering cross-border innovation in biomedical technology and geriatric care.
Key expected outcomes include an automated system for highly precise classification of functional and cognitive independence levels. The research will also identify sensitive movement indicators linked to individual autonomy, correlating these new metrics with established clinical assessment tools to validate their diagnostic utility.
“This could help improve rehabilitation and clinical follow-up processes. Furthermore, it could transform clinical assessment toward objective, digital models, enhancing decision-making through quantitative patient monitoring. In the future, we hope this methodology can be implemented in hospitals, clinical centers, and remote monitoring systems, contributing to the development of non-invasive, easy-to-implement technologies for the healthcare sector,” concluded Dr. Britam Gómez.