ATU780 – CatchU with Jeannette Mahoney

Hi, I’m Dr. Jeanette Mahoney and I’m the founder and president of Jet Worldwide Enterprises, Inc., The creator of CatchU… Before you Fall. And this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 780 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on May 8th, 2026.

In today’s show, we’re excited to welcome Dr. Jeanette Mahoney, founder and president of Jet Worldwide Enterprises and she’s here to talk about CatchU… Before you Fall and how this can help identify fall risk in individuals. We’re also joined by Ale Gonzalez from BridgingApps with An App Worth Mentioning and I have a quick story about a really cool project over at the University of Detroit Mercy, looking to create unique solutions for individuals with disabilities. We’d like to take a quick minute to thank everyone who attended our training earlier this week on note-taking accommodations. So thank you so much all for listening. Let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Our story today comes to us from BridgeDetroit and it’s titled University of Detroit Mercy Students Create Assisted Devices to Aid Disability Community. It’s written by Micah Walker. It talks about a senior-level program at University of Detroit Mercy that’s been working with individuals to try to make new assistive devices to kind of meet their needs and overcome barriers. It says that the class and the groups are made up of a mix of engineering and nursing students, at least for the ones they’re talking about here, but it sounds like they’re taking people from kind of different career paths, different education paths, and putting them together to really meet the needs of folks. And it actually mentions the folks that they’re working with here in this story. So they’re not just kind of making something for someone who uses a wheelchair or somebody who has low vision. They’re making it for an actual individual to meet the actual needs that they have.

So they meet with the person and sit there and kind of brainstorm ideas, find out where the barriers are, where their pain points are, what they’re kind of struggling to be able to accomplish. Look at what’s already out there, what they’re already using, figuring out where the gaps are, why that’s not working? Is it just not able to meet that need? Am I having to use 10 things to do something? And then they actually work to finish a product that can be presented to the individual. So it sounds pretty cool. It looks like the first semester is kind of spent working as a group, working one-on-one with the individual, and kind of figuring out what might be able to be put in place. Then it looks like there’s some research behind it, figuring out if things are already out there to be able to do it, finding the things that don’t have a solution already readily available. Brainstorming, figuring out what all you can do to make that. Then it looks like the second part of the semester or the second semester is spent actually prototyping and creating the device.

Looks like they’ve had this program for quite some time, so I would love to see what all the tools that have come out of this are. Has anything actually kind of ever went to market or been available for other folks? I know some programs, at least here in Indiana, I know we’ve talked to in the past and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, you don’t finish the product. You just kind of hand it down to the next class who then works on it and improves it and makes it better. So I would love to see what ends up happening with these faces of design events and the different things that are available for them. But very, very kind of cool project. I will put a link to this story over in the show notes so you can dig in, find out what it was that they actually made, what they actually were able to create, how it helped, and everything else and just be able to learn a little bit more about this project.

But anyway, I’ll try to keep my eye on it as well because it sounds very interesting and I’d love to kind of find out what kind of solutions they’re making. I also really like the pairing of students from different tracks. So you don’t just have engineers working on it. You also have nursing students or maybe students in medical school or other degree and career paths just to get those different perspectives and really be able to work with the whole person. So again, I’ll put a link to this over in the show notes as you can go learn more about it yourself.

Listeners, next up on the show, we’re very excited to welcome back Ale Gonzalez from BridgingApps with An App Worth Mentioning.

This is Ale Gonzalez with BridgingApps and this is An App Worth Mentioning. This week’s featured app is called ONSCREEN Joy. ONSCREEN Joy is a senior care and communication app designed to simplify technology for older adults and individuals with disabilities. Its core goal is to reduce barriers to connection by turning a tablet into an automated caregiver-supported device. A favorite feature of ONSCREEN Joy is its hands-free functionality. Incoming video calls can be automatically answered without requiring any interaction, which can be particularly helpful for users with low vision, limited dexterity, or cognitive challenges.

The app also includes an AI companion by the name of Joy that engages users through conversation, reminders, and wellness check-ins. This voice-based interaction can be valuable for individuals who rely more on auditory input rather than visual navigation. ONSCREEN Joy is currently available for both Android and iOS devices and is free to download. For more information on this app and others like it, visit www.bridgingapps.org.

Today, listeners, we’re excited to welcome Dr. Jeanette Mahoney to the show to tell us about CatchU… Before You Fall and how it can assist with fall risk to help promote and assist with independence and we cannot wait to hear all about it. Dr. Mahoney, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, I’m excited to get into talking about the technology, but before we do that, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Sure. I am a professor of neurology here at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University in New York. Also, the creator and founder of CatchU, the digital health app that we’re about to talk about that looks at multisensory integration and it’s used in predicting falls in older adults.

Awesome. Well, you kind of started telling us about it, but I guess where did the idea for CatchU come from?

I’ve always been interested in studying the brain. And when I first got out of graduate school, we were studying how the brain integrates information across sensory processes like things you feel, things you see. And we were studying that in youngs. And then I had the opportunity to start a postdoc where we were pivoting more towards understanding things in older adults and not a lot of research was done in that domain. And so as I started bringing on this test in the laboratory, which is really a simple reaction time test, basically if you see something, I want you to hit a response pad. If you feel something, hit a response pad, or if they come together, hit that same response pad. So from an evolutionary perspective, our brains are pre-wired to respond to something faster if it receives two bits of information as opposed to one.

So we started studying that in the lab and older adults. And what we realized is that not a lot of older adults have this ability to integrate information. So I wanted to know, “Well, of the people who can’t benefit from receiving multisensory, which is the somatosensory things we feel and things we see at the same time, what happens to these people?” And so the more studies that we conducted, the more we realized that the people who don’t integrate this visual somatosensory information are the people who are demonstrating slow and unsteady gait. They’re the people who are having problems balancing, especially if you ask them to balance on one foot at a time. And so we went on to look at falls because both of those are markers for falls. And what we found is that the older adults who were not able to integrate on this test were at a 24% increased risk of having a fall in the next two to three years.

And this was important and timely for me because at the same exact time my grandma had a fall and it led to a whole downward spiral in her health, which ultimately led to her demise. So I was like, “I have something here. I really need to figure out a way to get it to the people who need it the most.” And mainly I did it in memory of her.

Nice. Nice. It’s amazing how many times I hear personal stories on here about how people become involved and come up with these different accommodations and different things that can help. So I guess what is CatchU?

So, CatchU, it’s a digital health app and it actually meets criteria as a wellness device in terms of what the FDA sets as a standard because there’s really no harm in taking a test on a phone. So basically if you could imagine holding a phone and keeping your eyes fixated on a standard cross and every once in a while you would see two lights pop up, you would feel the phone vibrate. Those would happen alone and together. And then your finger, however, most people respond with their thumb, would be hovering over the bottom quarter of the phone, which is a gray response area that basically says, “Click here as soon as you feel or see anything.” And all you’re really doing is being tasked with responding as fast as possible to any sort of sensory stimulation, anything you feel, see whether it comes alone or together.

And the magic happens when these two bits of information come together because your brain is pre-wired to benefit from this redundant information. But apparently, as I was mentioning, not all older adults have the ability to trump off of that. So as that starts fading off, because as we get older, we start losing sensory capabilities, you’ll see more and more people wearing hearing aids or glasses or using a cane. As those sensory systems start deteriorating, we’re also noticing that the multisensory processes are deteriorating as well, but we’re sort of using this in a way, almost like a proxy, to determine who’s at risk for falls because there’s really no quantitative index yet for predicting who will go on to have a fall.

Yeah, most definitely. And I know that falls is just one of the biggest kind of issues out there to folks being able to live independently. So basically it takes all the data from this and then behind the scenes can give, is it an aggregate score or how does it kind of figure out fall risk and then how’s that relayed?

Sure. So when you take the test, you have three blocks. Each block is about two and a half minutes and you’re presented with a bunch of stimuli. Some of them are lone, some of them together, some of them are actually no stims. It’s actually like a catch trial to see if you’re actually doing the task at hands. And so we’re a little sneaky like that, but you take the performance over the three blocks and you look at all of their reaction times. And what we do is we use a proprietary algorithm to transform that into what’s called a cumulative distribution probability score.

I won’t bore you with the details here, but basically you get a nice report after somebody’s done with a test that shows you their reaction time, how fast they were to each of the three conditions that we’re caring about here, and then you also get a nice line drawing. And that line drawing is going to show you whether or not somebody benefits from receiving multisensory integration because if they have this nice positive peak, it shows me that they were able to respond to multisensory conditions faster than either of the two unisensory in isolation. However, if they have this large negative dip that never crosses the X-axis, then we know that there’s a problem here with multisensory information. Sometimes it’s almost being overstimulated. They’re just not receiving that benefit and not receiving that benefit is what’s been linked to these falls in and of themself, both future and past falls, as well as the other risk factors for falls like the motor problems through gait imbalance.

And then this information, is this something that let’s say I took the assessment myself, is this information I could use, information I could share with my doctor and we could kind of work together or how would I use this information to maybe lessen my fall risk?

Got you. So see, the thing is that we’ve tried to build this up as a way to raise awareness to falls and rather than go directly to consumer because our reports are a little bit elaborative and they sort of are written for providers because providers also have a good grasp of the patient’s chart and their history as they’ve been coming to them for years. So the test itself is meant to be ordered by a provider who understands what our mission is here, which is to become the standard of care in predicting and preventing falls. And so once a provider would be onboarded, they would have their patients take the test. And once the test is completed, which only takes about 10 minutes, the report is instantaneously emailed to the doctor and the doctor has this nice one-pager that tells him or her whether their patient is at risk for falls and moreover, not just if they’re at risk, but what they should do about it.

So we take into consideration their performance on this non-cognitive test as well as some of the background demographics and health conditions that they might have endorsed that they already have and we come up with some tailored recommendations that are linked to CDC study recommendations. We didn’t want to put forth a novel test and then also provide a novel intervention at the same time. I didn’t think that would bode very well. So what we wanted to do is stay true to the outcomes that are there and the therapies that are available to people that the government recommends, but to get them to notice those recommendations better and to bring it to the doctor’s forefront so that they would go ahead and make these recommendations that they know could be helpful as well as have it serve as a reminder to offer the falls counseling that may or may not be administered during the time.

Doctors have very limited face-to-face time and especially if they’re doing an annual wellness visit where most of the time they’re just asking, “Do you have a history of falls? Have you had a fall in the past year? Do you have a fear of falling?” Those questions are great, but sometimes the answers don’t go anywhere. So by giving this test and having this report be generated, it’s an action item for the doctor to take care of. It’s also an eye-opener because a lot of people think, “Hey, I’m 65, I’m healthy, I’m fit, everything’s good.” But we don’t really know that because this test that we’re giving is actually testing your brain, the big black box. And what we’re doing is using this test as a window to the brain to say whether or not we think you’re at risk of falls based on 15 years worth of neuroscience evidence.

There’s no test out there like this yet and so we’re really very excited to be able to bring it to the market and to get adoption from more and more doctors so that we can sort of alleviate this, which was once $50 billion, but is now in 2030 about to be $101 billion spend on falls annually.

Wow, that’s amazing. And thanks for clarifying. Yeah, I love that it does go to the doctor. And like you said, just so little time to really spend with them. And if most people are like me, the doctor asks, “How are you?” And you just say, “Fine,” and kind of move on with the day. So having something that’s not going to take up a ton of their time, but be able to give them that data, be able to help them figure out. And not only that, but also be able to recommend or at least steer them in the right direction of some different interventions.

Absolutely.

Is this something that I could track improvements over time? So let’s say I do the intervention, can I have the participant do the test again to see if they’re improving?

Yes. I’m so happy you asked that question because right now we have it set up that I would love for everyone to take it as soon as they turn 65 as part of their annual wellness visit, or even not, just something a doctor orders because he sees that you already have a diagnosis that is concerning lack of vitamin D, osteoporosis if you have diabetes, some of these factors are known to be linked with falls. So just by virtue of having any one of those, the doctor can order this test and say, “You know what? I have concerns about falls. I want to give them a quantitative test and see what the results are.” So now once you take the test once, that sort of serves as your baseline, “This is where you are right now when you took this test.” If you do not do well on CatchU, we encourage the doctors to order it every six months so that we can track changes over time.

But here’s the catch. It’s not about taking the test six months again. It’s about doing what the doctor recommended and seeing if those recommendations actually work for you. Because I could be a doctor telling you, “You know what? Josh, you should go do some Thai chi or you should really focus on balance measures that strengthen your core so that we can increase your muscle mass and hopefully have you not have a fall.” But if I tell you to do that and you don’t do it, then I really wouldn’t expect any change in your CatchU test results. So there’s a give and take about testing then having the doctor provide the recommendations and then knowing or at least understanding whether or not the patient actually did what you asked them to, because that will be the true testament as to whether or not your CatchU profile changes.

Oh, definitely. And like you said, I mean, there’s a bunch of different interventions, so maybe it’s not the right intervention. Maybe something else is going to be able to help. So being able to know that, “Hey, I’ve really been doing this. I’ve been doing the work I’m supposed to, but my numbers aren’t improving.” “Well, let’s try something different. Let’s keep you independent and safe.”

100%.

Awesome. Awesome.

Or, “I do see some improvements, it’s just not where I want you to be. Let’s keep up the physical therapy.” It’s a good sort of metric to say, “You know what? I want to submit this to insurance and say, ‘You know what? I think they need another three months or however much because I’m showing improvements, but they’re not quite where I want them to be where I can be confident that they’re in a good spot for now.'”

Oh, definitely. And sometimes that has to help out doctors too, just because patients, and I’ve been one before, not so much for this but, “Why are you making me do this? It’s not doing anything. Why, why, why? My physical therapist is killing me and this is terrible and it’s not doing anything. I don’t feel any better. I don’t feel any better for this kind of thing.” But you can really show that improvement as it goes there. I know that can be helpful as well.

Absolutely.

Dr. Mahoney, you’ve been working on this for quite a while. Can you maybe tell me a story about something that you learned during development of CatchU or maybe something that kind of caught you off guard?

Oh my God, I can tell you loads of stories.

Well, I kind of figured. Well, just maybe a couple that really stand out.

Absolutely. So when I first started recognizing that this had potential was two different ways. One, I presented the findings to our lab meeting, which as a division, we do this weekly and everybody takes turns sharing where they’re at. And I think it was the time when I was presenting like, “Listen, we really have a simple reaction time test that is almost fun to do that is showing us who’s at risk for falls.” And it was my friend and colleague, Dr. Claudene George, who’s at Montefiore Medical Center who was like, she came to me after the meeting and was like, “Jeanette, I don’t think you really understand what you have here. This is something huge. I want this on my phone. I want to be able to give this to patients in my office.” And coming from a geriatrician, that’s huge because they pride themselves on knowing who’s going to have a fall, whether it’s based on cognition, if it’s based on mobility or polypharmacy, they do this, this is their specialty.

But the problem is we’re really at a loss for geriatrician these days. There’s less than 4,000 of them in America and they’re really talented but not everybody goes to one. So having her say that to me and then the wheel started spinning, that was my aha moment like, “Wow, we could totally put this on a phone. You’re sending a vibration, you’re sending a light, you’re asking somebody to touch their screen. This isn’t a big deal.” So it was at that point where I figured out like, “Could I maybe get a student developer to see if we could build an app?” And so that was back in 2020. At the same time, I was formerly working at Albert Einstein College of Medicine before moving to Stony Brook, they were really excited about the results and they were like, “Have you thought about disclosing this?” And I’m like, “Oh my God, what does disclosing me?” And I was so nervous. Now we’re talking about intellectual properties, we’re talking about companies, attorneys.

This was so scary to me, but they were like, “No, don’t worry. You can do two things. You can either take this and build a company and really start to branch out with it, or you can just hand it over to us and we’ll take it.” And I was like, “Wait a second, this is my baby. I’ve been working on this at the time for over 10 years.” I was like, “Well, I guess I’m going to start a company.” So I joined and I applied for an accelerator program. It was the first year of the Westchester Business Accelerator Program. I got accepted and I literally walked into bootcamp and had one exercise. I went up to the director, Mary Howard. I was like, “Nope, this is not for me. I am not a business person. I’m a scientist. I’m out.” She was like, “No, you’re exactly where you need to be, Jeanette. I promise you, just stay, stay, stay.”

So I stayed and that was 2020. I mean, we worked in-person for two weeks until COVID hit and then I spent like 18-hour days working at Einstein work and then doing CatchU stuff at night and weekends and really just started talking to people. And what I was really amazed with was the amount of people that really appreciated the scientific results and findings behind the app and that really wanted to help. You would think that, “Okay, you have an idea and most startups fail.” And even trying to talk to my husband about this is like, “You sure you want to do this? This could be really scary.” And I was like, “I don’t know, but I don’t want to give it away. So I think I’m sort of in this and I’m doing it for Graham. So I think we’re on this road.”

Fast-forward five, six years later we have a company, we have a patent, just won the NIA Start-Up Challenge. We’re really trying to integrate the app into new applications, not just to NIH. We’re working on a PCORI grant. Both Einstein and Stony Brook are all in for what we’re doing, which really makes you feel confident in what you’re doing to have the people that you work with really have your back and really are interested to see your progress. So I would say all in all, it’s been an experience. I’m really happy I didn’t bail on it because of being scared or just thinking that it was going to be too much work or something out of my comfort zone. So I feel blessed in a way that I’ve worked with a lot of people who have really seen the value in what I’m doing and are in it with me for the long haul, so I would say that those are my two stories.

Nice. Nice. No, we’re very glad that you stuck with it as well because yeah, so many times, not so many times, but I know sometimes folks have the idea, start putting the work and yeah, it kind of goes somewhere else or goes to maybe a bigger group or something like that and it fizzles or I guess the goals change. Maybe the goal stays the same, but the area or the way they’re going. But no, when it’s your baby, you’re going to treat it like that and you’re going to end up with a great product and amazing thing that’s able to really help folks. And yeah, I’m sure that many folks you encounter were very excited about it just because there’s not anything like that out there, especially something that’s non-invasive, doesn’t take very much time but can give you that kind of data and information to be able to help people. It’s pretty unique.

Yeah, thank you. And from what we heard, they feel like they’re playing a game and what could be better than that? You don’t want any more poking and prodding with needles and blood tests and going into a claustrophobic MRI if you don’t have to. If you can do something so simple that’s tapping into lower level cognitive because it’s really not cognitive, it’s more sensory, but you really can’t sit down and take any tests without paying attention to it, so there’s always going to be some sort of cognitive piece to it. But the point is I’m not saying, “If you see X, do Y. And if you see Z, do A.” It’s not like that. It’s just simply, “Go.” It’s like basically being at a traffic light and having that light go from red to green and you putting your foot on the gas and saying, “I’m out of here.”

Yeah, most definitely. I mean, it’s almost something that could be done in the waiting room while you’re waiting on the doctor. I mean, you wouldn’t-

It can be.

Yeah, wouldn’t even have to take up the time of being in there and it’d give you, like you said, it’s kind of like playing a game and it gives you something to do besides filling out the 19 pages of paperwork or whatever else they’re going to make you do. And it’s a lot easier and probably more enjoyable than that as well. So, Jean, what’s your vision for CatchU?

Josh, our vision’s really clear. Our vision is really to raise awareness of fall risks, to prevent falls before they happen and to improve the wellbeing and lives of older adults and all people by implementing a novel, quantitative, and scientifically validated solution.

Dr. Mahoney, if our listeners want to find out more, what’s a good way for them to do that?

Yeah, great. Good question. We are online at www.catchu.net. You can follow us there. We’re actually on LinkedIn and Twitter and you can find the handles below. Our website is going to be the best place for you to look at some of our history, our evolution. You can find all of our publications there. Any questions, anybody can reach out to me at jeanette@catchu.net or even write an email to our info page, I’ll see it. And I’m happy to hear from people who have an interest and would love to get this to the people that need it the most. So if any providers are listening and are interested in finding out newer ways and maybe more efficient ways to get this test to participants or to patients that you feel could benefit in a way that could be potentially reimbursed, we have a platform for that. I would love to discuss it.

Awesome. We’ll put all that information down in the show notes so that folks can easily find it and definitely reach out because I’m sure there’s probably a lot of practitioners that’d be very excited to have another tool in their toolbox, have something else to be able to help folks just stay independent, stay in their homes longer safely, and be able to do all those things safely.

Well, Dr. Jeanette Mahoney, thank you so much again for coming on for telling us about CatchU… Before You Fall. I’ll use the whole name there for just another time, but thanks so much for creating a great tool. Again, it’s just going to be able to help folks with safety and give doctors another tool in their toolbox to be able to help their patients.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org or shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAproject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation, or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nicole Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule.

Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update. I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.