Athlone students showcase app supporting young people with scoliosis

Our Lady's Bower students Lavonder Serhan and Sophie Browne presented CurveCare, a mobile app supporting people with scoliosis, at the Technovation Ireland Regional Pitch Event (RPE) at AMD CityWest Dublin.

The app was developed over three months through the Teen-Turn afterschool programme. Curvecare was inspired by the personal experiences of one of the team members who lives with scoliosis.

"We came up with the idea for CurveCare because one of our team members has scoliosis, so we had a personal understanding of the challenges of managing the condition," said Lavonder and Sophie.

The app addresses a pressing need in Ireland, where scoliosis surgery waiting lists remain a serious concern, with hundreds of children on the list and some waiting more than a year for surgery, even as spinal curves risk worsening the longer treatment is delayed.

CurveCare offers several practical tools for managing scoliosis: an exercise library tailored to the condition, a brace wear tracker, a pain tracking system, and a built-in spinal curve measurement tool that allows users to record and monitor changes over time.

The girls worked on the project through Teen-Turn's weekly online and in-person sessions.

Their mentor Roisin Roddy saw the progression first-hand: "At the beginning, Sophie and Lavonder were still developing their understanding of app development and how to structure a project of this scale. As the programme progressed, they became increasingly confident in making design decisions, and troubleshooting issues."

Lavonder and Sophie consulted both young patients and medical experts while building CurveCare, and continue to gather user feedback through surveys and interviews.

For two secondary school students, it's an ambitious approach – and the project is now getting attention beyond their classroom.

Teen-Turn, an Irish charity, has been the regional ambassador for Technovation in Ireland for the past nine years, supporting teenage girls to gain hands-on experience in technology.

Each project builds a functioning mobile app to address a real-world problem the participants see in their own communities.

This year, 67 projects from 9 counties and more than 25 schools were submitted to Technovation from Ireland.