An 11th Grader Brings Technology to Canine Care

Anshul Bhatt's non-invasive gait monitoring device detects orthopedic diseases in dogs

- Shail Desai

During a trek last year, Anshul Bhatt realised that the family's eleven-and-a-half-year-old Labrador, Max, was in severe discomfort. While he would normally be running about in the wild, never refusing a dip in a pool of water, he now sat licking his paws in pain. A visit to the vet revealed late-stage arthritis.

"Since it wasn't diagnosed in time, the treatment is less effective. You can alleviate the pain and make dietary changes, but there isn't much you can do beyond a point," says Bhatt, 16, a class XI student at Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai.

The incident got him thinking. By the end of the year, he arrived at the design for PawPath, a non-invasive gait monitoring device that detects orthopedic and neurodegenerative diseases in canines. It won him second position in the Animal Sciences category at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair Awards (for students) in the US in May.

During the early days, Bhatt reached out to vets to understand the current methods being used to study different ailments based on dog gait. Visual clues are the most basic form of detection where a vet physically inspects a dog. The other two require an expensive indoor setup—while kinetic gait analysis studies movement using force plates, kinematic analysis utilizes a high-end camera to capture a dog's movement, usually on a treadmill. This would typically be followed by an X-ray while sedated to detect various abnormalities from orthopedic and neurodegenerative disorders to cruciate ligament tears, osteoarthritis and ataxia.