Written by Sparta Science’s Chief Technology Officer, Greg Olsen, Ph.D., and Senior Epidemiologist, Jessica Hinman, Ph.D., this in-depth white paper explores Balance – a central and complex aspect of Movement Health. Balance requires input from multiple sensory systems, musculoskeletal responses, and coordination by the brain and spinal cord. People desire “good balance” for obvious reasons, including reduced risk of falling and improved athletic and day-to-day physical performance. Balance capabilities are not static nor inherent. They can be improved through exercise and can be adversely im ..read more

Company is Actively Collaborating with DOD on Multiple SBIR Phase I and Phase II projects Sparta Science, the developer of a scalable, machine learning-based movement health platform, was recently awarded an AFWERX Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract by the United States Air Force (USAF) to develop an objective, scalable decision support tool to aide in musculoskeletal injury (MSKI) return-to-duty (RTD) determinations. This award is significant because it will allow Airmen and their care teams to benefit from the greater standardization built into this decision-support ..read more

Sparta Science, the developer of a scalable, machine learning-based movement health platform, was recently awarded an AFWERX Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract by the United States Air Force to identify early biomarkers of cumulative sub-concussive brain injury. This award is significant because it will allow Sparta to develop the capability to identify objectively when Airmen are negatively affected by cumulative exposure to repetitive subconcussive blasts to quantify the problem and reduce long-term health impacts Sparta Science is actively collaborating with the Dep ..read more

Smith, C., Doma, K., Heilbronn, B., & Leicht, A. (2022). Reliability of Force Plate Metrics During Standard Jump, Balance, and Plank Assessments in Military Personnel. Military Medicine, usac387. https://doi.org/10.1093/milmed/usac387 Key takeaways The reliability of force plate metrics was found to be moderate to good for a military population,  Derived Sparta Science metrics demonstrated greater reliability than standard biomechanical variables obtained from force plate scans, on average The minimal detectable change for most force plate metrics was high, indicating large changes ..read more

MENLO PARK, Calif., Dec. 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Sparta Science, the developer of a scalable, machine learning-based movement health platform, was recently awarded an AFWERX Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract by the United States Air Force to apply artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) embedded in cloud and mobile apps to extend the reach and productivity of Space Force’s Guardian Resiliency Teams (GRT) in their mission to optimize individual Guardians’ performance. This award is significant as it aims to improve Guardians’ coping mechan ..read more

By Greg Olsen, Ph.D. and Jessica Hinman Ph.D. Overview Increasingly available and affordable digital technologies (e.g., instrumentation, data collection, data storage, and machine learning capabilities) have enabled a generation of “smart” operational systems that learn from the massive data they produce. Examples are everywhere: Smart industrial monitoring systems collect sensor data and use models to predict failures Media companies like Netflix collect viewing data and use it to predict what you’re likely to watch eCommerce companies like Amazon use browsing and transaction data to pred ..read more

Loftus, T. J., Shickel, B., Balch, J. A., Tighe, P. J., Abbott, K. L., Fazzone, B., Anderson, E. M., Rozowsky, J., Ozrazgat-Baslanti, T., Ren, Y., Berceli, S. A., Hogan, W. R., Efron, P. A., Moorman, J. R., Rashidi, P., Upchurch, G. R., & Bihorac, A. (2022). Phenotype clustering in health care: A narrative review for clinicians. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence, 5.  https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frai.2022.842306 Key takeaways Human pathophysiology is highly complex and often requires flexible analytic methods to process and clarify that complexity. Clustering algo ..read more

Written by Kim Clarno, DPT Physical therapy is an effective treatment for many conditions that affect a person’s ability to move. One systematic review published in 2016 found that physical therapy improved health in nearly all studies, when compared with usual care (1). But we also know that patients who could benefit from physical therapy sometimes don’t. The most common theory to explain this is non-adherence, which means that some patients don’t complete the recommended amount of physical therapy and/or that they don’t follow through with home exercises. Understanding the factors t ..read more

“Biomarker” is a term that is beginning to be more used frequently in human health and performance domains, but what does it actually mean? If you look for a simple dictionary definition, you’ll probably find something like, “biomarkers assess unique physical and behavioral human characteristics through measurement and analysis.” While this definition is accurate, it doesn’t quite provide the detail necessary to understand the utility of biomarkers. Simply put, a biomarker can quantify unique traits or characteristics of an individual. Biomarkers can be extremely simple to measure (e.g. heigh ..read more

Menlo Park, CA – October 03, 2022 – Sparta Science, a scalable, machine learning-based movement health platform, has been awarded two AFWERX Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contracts by the United States Air Force. In addition to the two Phase II SBIRs awarded earlier this year, these Phase II SBIR contracts build on the success of AFWERX SBIR Phase I contracts awarded in 2021. Sparta Science is actively collaborating with the Department of Defense on multiple SBIR projects to improve warfighter readiness by utilizing Sparta Science’s movement health intelligence platform ..read more