Lanefyld reinvents wheel with aim of reducing falls among vulnerable elderly

By Andreia da Silva

Clinical care geriatrician Carolien van der Linden stated in the Dutch daily newspaper de Volkskrant that we should “get rid of the fatalistic attitude that falling is just part of life as you get older”. This was in response to a symposium held at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Van der Linden was looking for a smart solution to lower the number of falls among vulnerable elderly people in the Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven. It is an issue that the founders of the Delft-based Lanefyld have been working on for some time now. They started out with a rollator, but are now working on the development of a wheel that can be used much more widely. In this instalment of Start-up of the Day, Yff Verstraeten and Thijs Veldhuis sit down with us to share their mission. 

How did you come up with the idea of creating an application for use in the care of the elderly? You yourselves are far from being part of that target group. 

Thijs: “I got to know Sven during my studies. Sven and his father ran a medical aid store where they were asked more and more often if they also had rollators with a beautiful design that could be folded compactly. So then Sven and I set to work on this together. I was also familiar with this request from my own personal surroundings. My late grandmother, who was 85 at the time, refused to walk behind a rollator. She was ashamed, especially because her friends did not use one. This request fueled the urge to flesh out this idea. I could combine my passion for design with starting my own business and also do something good for society.” 

Yff: “I myself was actually born with just one hand. This teaches you to approach things in a creative way from a young age. I studied orthopedic technology, with a master’s degree in Industrial Design at TU/e. I find the link between people and technology fascinating. The reason I took a master’s in Industrial Design is because when it comes to orthopedic technology, you mainly make custom-made prosthetics. I wanted to be able to serve a larger target group. Eventually, I was commissioned by a rehabilitation center in Eindhoven to look at an application for a rollator. When people use a rollator, they don’t always use it in the right way, which can lead to falls. For instance, because they walk too far away from the rollator and are unable to right themselves when they trip over a curb. I was already looking at sensors in this project that could prevent falls.” 

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How did the two of you end up working together?

Yff: “Businsess Insider wrote a piece about my project when I was invited to present my product at the Dutch Design Week. Thijs read this piece and got in touch with me. We didn’t start working together right away. We first had some contact, then we didn’t speak to each other for months until mid 2020.” 

Thijs: “Just to clarify, we started to combine our products in September 2020. I had a design rollator that folded up compactly, while Yff had the safety sensors for a rollator. We went on the road with this. We did an awful lot of talks and interviews. Then we found out that things were slightly more nuanced than we initially thought.” 

Yff: “Health insurance companies still don’t reimburse preventive medical aids so that means it would be unaffordable for a lot of people to purchase a rollator from us. Also, many people consider the purchase of a rollator as a necessary evil, as in, the last purchase before you die.” 

Why do you think that this issue is so important? Is this also your unique selling point? 

Yff: “Every year around 20,000 people in the Netherlands sustain a fall. Some recover, others die as a result of that fall. These falls, in addition to the personal suffering for the family and the person concerned, cost 390 million euros per year. In some instances, these accidents are preventable. We want to have an impact on those people so that they do not have to suffer a hip fracture or spend a long time recovering. It’s a sustainable solution which we can build a great business case for health insurance companies.” 

Thijs: “We have since moved on from the idea of a rollator and are now working on a braking system for the wheels. Our unique selling point lies in the fact that we are doing something – which to the best of our knowledge – nobody else is doing at the moment. We are developing a braking system and collecting data to make the braking system better and better. Before we abandoned the original idea, we went back and reanalyzed all the hundreds of conversations that we have had.” 

Do you already have a prototype? 

Yff: “We have already been working on a prototype for a long time which we have been building and testing for several months. We are in the middle of the iteration process. Of course, the definition of a prototype and pilot is very broad. We will start testing our prototypes (of the safe rollator) in actual practice in about a month. By doing a lot of practical testing over a short period of time, we are bound to learn a lot about the prototype and what needs to be improved. Which means we are going to make lots of minor adjustments, tests, and so on during this time. By doing all these tests, we hope to create a good basis for a clinical study that will start in early 2023. We’re also writing up other plans, but it is too early now to share these.” 

If I speak to you again in another five years, what news might you share with our readers? 

Yff: “We’re now doing everything we can to bring our product to maturity with the help of a lot of research. We prefer to work as long as possible with subsidies or financial loans so that we can raise the value of our company. We are in contact with dozens of organizations in the Netherlands, and currently exploring the market in Germany or Denmark. Over there, the healthcare system is better regulated. Because of the new Minister of Health here in the Netherlands, there is a possibility that health insurance companies may also start reimbursing preventive aids as of 2023. Obviously, that’s a great opportunity for us.” 

Thijs: “I expect that in five years’ time we will be selling our product throughout the Netherlands, maybe even abroad. I know that five years is already quite fast, but what we have set up together in less than one year fills me with a lot of confidence.”  

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