Our story

“We all know how hard it is to keep exercising; imagine having to exercise every single day after suffering a life shattering event like a stroke. Performing hours of the same repetitive movements every day, just to be able to feed yourself, hold a glass of water – or hug your loved ones again.” Dr Paul Rinne, Co-founder and CEO, GripAble.

Physical rehabilitation is critical for patients to restore quality of life after stroke and many other neurological, orthopaedic and paediatric conditions. But for years, therapists have struggled to find appropriate tools that can engage their patients in rehabilitation, allow for greater efficiency in their workflow, and track outcomes remotely.

As a neuroscientist carrying out his PhD at Imperial College London, Dr Paul Rinne was working closely with therapy teams on stroke wards, where the need for an accessible mobile opportunity for patients undergoing physical and occupational therapy became clear. Traditional therapy equipment – like foams, cones and putty – wasn’t cutting it and couldn’t provide real-time motivation, feedback or data for tracking progress, leading patients to become disengaged in their rehab regimes once unsupervised.

This is when the idea for the GripAble device was born – a smart mobile assessment and training device that connects to an app, to help people with upper limb movement impairment to improve movement and grip strength.

Pioneered by GripAble co-founders Dr Paul Rinne (CEO) and Dr Mike Mace (CTO), the technology has created a mobile instrument with in-built gamification to increase user engagement.

The development of GripAble was driven by the idea of accessibility to ensure that the majority of patients could interact with it, including those with cognitive difficulties, when compared with other systems, and that the transition from bench to bedside was as smooth as possible. GripAble has since been tested and developed over the last eight years in partnership with thousands of occupational and physical therapists and patients across multiple clinical conditions and leading academic institutions including Imperial College London and within Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust.

Currently used by neurological and orthopaedic therapists in hospital and community settings across the UK, GripAble is focused on supporting patients to get back to doing what they love and restoring their independence, and giving them and their therapist assessment tools that meet both of their needs.

GripAble is now used in more than 350 clinical settings and we have recorded more than 13 million repetitions in just ten months.