What’s up with this “Finch Score”?

We are all living under an abundant diet of information, as never seen before.

With the progress of technology, the smartphone brings constant news about the world, our friends, family, and all sorts of trivia.

Our financial statements and our car dashboards are examples that quickly come to mind.

It is easy to get information overload, and easy to get data fatigue.

The University of California (San Diego) estimated that our brains are flooded with over 34 gigabytes of daily information. 

Compare that to the amount of memory you have in your smartphone and we can quickly realize the sheer amount we are exposed to every day: approximately 105,000 pieces of information in the form of text, speech, pictures, movies, etc.

No one can pay attention to it all and maintain a sane mind, so our brain does what it does best: chooses what is essential.

Let us get back to the dashboard in your car.

It displays the most critical information about the status of your vehicle. 

It tells you if you are safe when driving, even though you frequently overlook most of its information. 

It displays the speed that you are driving and the tire pressure, and showing you how far you can get. 

It will remind you about the oil change and service requirements, and your brake status. 

It does not display the measurements of every sensor of the car, what is calculating, or its raw data.

Yet, the car manages to inform you if you are getting off your lane.

Occasionally, you might get a "check engine" or "low gas" light.

Similarly, your Credit Score will inform you if things are getting better or getting worse. And the credit service will advise you on what to do to make your credit score improve.

As humans, we move, climb, reach, and perform thousands of activities every day. As we age, our agility, balance, and strength decrease. It is precisely the way how our life cycle goes.

With all the information bombarding our brains every single day, it is nearly impossible to notice our physical abilities decline. We can slowly become a "Boiling Frog" (watch the Boiling A Frog Video HERE).

When it takes a fall to recognize there was an “engine light” on all along, it is already too late. To push a button and summon an ambulance is reacting after the damage has already happened.

But the signs were already there. And they build to culminate with the fall.

That is what happens to our patients, to our parents.

And one day, to ourselves.

Early warnings give the driver time to change course. 

Fix what is not right. 

Avoid the fall.

As physical therapists, we know it is possible to postpone the physical and mental decline and to prevent these falls.

That is what the Finch App for the Apple Watch is here to do: measure what every therapist observes in their evaluation and alert you. Except it does that for you every second of every day.

We decided that technology can do better than send an alert about a fall that has already happened. 

And for anyone to make sense of all the information that really matters, we created the Finch Score: an at-a-glance measure of what is important. Simple and easy to read, the Finch Score is a number that tells you where you are in the most important factors, and how you stack up against the best you (adjusted for your personal demographics).

The Finch App compares you with your younger self and against the statistics to give a realistic look at where you are.

Certain falls are inevitable (the Finch App will call rescue when those happen).

But most are not.

The Finch is here to see they do not happen.