Tag: healthy aging

A smartphone app developed by a Stony Brook Medicine neurology researcher that uses data to measure a person’s risk of falling has earned national recognition from the National Institutes of Health‘s National Institute on Aging (NIA) as a promising new technology to support healthy aging.

The multisensory digital app, “CatchU … Before You Fall,” was created by Jeannette Mahoney, who last week was named one of seven winners of the NIA’s 2025 Start-Up Challenge, selected from 275 competitors nationwide. Winners each receive $65,000 to continue working on technology that is designed to improve healthy aging.

The 10-minute digital health app measures simple reaction time by asking users to respond as quickly as possible to targets they can see, feel or experience at the same time. The program analyzes how the brain processes information from multiple sensory signals and delivers results along with fall-prevention recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Stopping Elderly Accidents, Deaths and Injuries program.

“It is an honor to be selected as a winner in this competition and that our work aligns with the NIH’s mission to advance transformative science and improve health outcomes for older adults,” Mahoney, professor of neurology and chief of the Division of Cognitive and Sensorimotor Aging in the Renaissance School of Medicine (ROSM) at Stony Brook University, said in a news release about the recognition.

“The prize that comes with this honor will afford us the opportunity to strengthen our leadership team, create deeper healthcare relationships to accelerate our commercial rollout, and showcase CatchU at premier medical conferences to drive visibility and traction of the product,” Mahoney said.

Nearly 30 percent of Americans over the age of 65 experience a fall annually, according to the CDC. And more than 3 million older Americans require an emergency room visit every year because of fall-related injuries.

These numbers are expected to rise sharply: The American Association of Retired Persons estimates that the population of older adults will more than double to over 88 million – more than 20 percent of the U.S. population – by 2050.

By 2030, it is estimated that the U.S. will spend over $101 billion on treating injuries from falls every year, making a digital health app to predict and prevent falls key, according to Mahoney.

Falling can be a major health risk for millions of Americans, particularly for older adults, and can lead to or cause reduced mobility, lack of independence and death, she said.

She designed CatchU to address a critical need for older adults. Experts say that existing fall assessments often rely on subjective self-reports, which can be limited, particularly for those with cognitive impairments. In cases of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, self-reporting can become largely unreliable.

Mahoney designed CatchU after a colleague, Claudene George, a geriatrician, considered the clinical significance of lab findings linking impaired multisensory integration to poor motor outcomes. She requested this test be available on a smartphone so that patients could be tested in the clinic. From there, the idea for CatchU was born.

Mahoney then developed and cultivated her app through her start-up company, Jet Worldwide Enterprises. The company holds an exclusive license for the patent-pending intellectual property from Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

She and her colleagues published their results around CatchU use in peer-reviewed scientific journals. For the NIA Start-Up Challenge, they tested CatchU’s ability to detect preclinical Alzheimer’s disease.

In 2025, Mahoney received $10,000 for her start-up company when she was named one of 21 stage one finalists of the Start-Up Challenge. Mahoney dedicated the project to her grandmother, Jean Sisinni, who had fallen before she died in 2021.