CALDERA MEDICAL
INNOVO
A third of women will experience Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI) at different stages of their lives, making it more common than hayfever.
Innovo is a non-invasive new solution to treat urinary incontinence at home.
We developed a garment to deliver multipath technology electrical muscle stimulation across the entire network of pelvic floor muscles using printed conductive material embedded in shorts.
This Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation (NMES) is proven to both strengthen these pelvic floor muscles, but also re-educates them to perform better independently. A handheld controller connects to the shorts allowing users to control the stimulation session.
Part of the system's development from its prior version was to provide a predictably fitting garment such that the electrode placement could reliably direct the stimulation to the correct muscle group on the body. A bespoke sizing strategy of nine SKUs was delivered using AlvaForm fit tools to test and verify the conformity and fitting across the garment’s design versions.
The novel application of the printing technology used won our development partner Conductive Transfers the Medilink UK Award for Innovation in 2024.
Despite this inclusive sizing, the properties of elastane shorts meant the embedded technology would be subject to stresses as the garment was taken on and off. To validate the durability of the circuit embedded in the garment, a rig was developed to simulate the ‘wear’ of repetitive stretch cycles whilst the product's performance was monitored.