Compliance with exercise programs is something that most physiotherapists and their patients struggle with. 

Plasticise, a new app developed by two neurological physiotherapists, aims to make it easier for patients to complete exercise programs at home by allowing physiotherapists to film their patients doing exercises exactly as prescribed in their program, accompanied by verbal cues to help them remember how to do it. 

The app won the Judges’ Award, worth $15,000, at the 2025 Physiotherapy Research Foundation Physio Pitchfest held at the APASC25 conference. 

Physio Pitchfest is a competition for innovative products developed by physiotherapists. 

Finalists have three minutes to ‘pitch’ their product to the audience and judging panel. 

Sarah Turner APAM and Kumbelin Levin APAM, both senior neurological physiotherapists at Advance Rehab Centre in Sydney, came up with the idea after getting frustrated with exercise prescription apps that did not meet either their or their clients’ needs. 

‘The majority of our clients have cognitive impairment or are reliant on family or support workers to help them and the home program prescribers that are currently out there are too clunky and not customisable enough—they’re not simple enough for our clients to actually do their exercises at home properly and recover in the way we would like them to. 

‘We thought, let’s just develop and design the app that we would want,’ Sarah says. 

Fortunately for Sarah and Kumbelin, Sarah’s partner’s brother is a website and app developer. 

‘He offered to teach us the ropes and guide us through the process of back-end development of the app, then help us with the build once we had a good understanding of how we wanted it to look and what features we wanted to include. 

‘It was an amazing opportunity. 

‘Before we knew it, we had an app in its most basic form.’ 

The next step was testing the app. 

Therapists at Advance Rehab Centre were happy to test the app with clients at the clinic to iron out any issues and make it as streamlined as possible. 

‘And then we started rolling it out. 

‘The therapists at Advance Rehab Centre were asked which app they would like to use moving forward. 

‘Did they want to use Plasticise? Did they want to use other apps? 

‘The team decided to go ahead with Plasticise—it basically just took off from there.’ 

Plasticise co-founder Sarah Turner shows a client the app on a tablet.

Plasticise is a web-based app, accessed through a browser on a phone, tablet or computer. 

Unlike most exercise prescription apps, which rely on an in-built catalogue or library in which a model does the exercises, Plasticise allows the clinician to film the client doing the exercise that has been prescribed to them, giving them instructions and cues that the client can hear when they play it back and showing them the set-up. 

‘We use specific cues over the top of the video so they can hear us while they do their exercises. 

‘“John, make sure to kick your back leg out. Hold it there.” 

‘Quite a few clients have said, “It feels like I’m not alone. I can hear you. I know what you’re prompting me to do.”’ 

It can also be more relatable for clients who use a wheelchair or clients from culturally diverse backgrounds to see themselves doing the exercise. 

Clients and clinicians can collaborate to call the exercises by a name that makes sense to the client. 

They can choose the days and times they would like to do the exercise program and the app will send them a notification—they can tick it off as they complete each exercise, rating the difficulty and adding of an exercise with the client. 

The user can record themselves doing the exercise at home and send it back to the clinician to check their progress. 

‘The fact that they are involved in reflecting and critiquing goes such a long way. 

‘A client might come into the clinic and say, “Oh, Sarah, I’m really confident with this one. My balance isn’t challenged anymore. Can we swap it out with something else?” 

‘We’ve got way more engagement through that feedback loop and that’s what it’s really about.’ 

Plasticise also supports multidisciplinary collaboration. 

All members of a client’s rehabilitation or care team—including their physiotherapist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist and exercise physiologist—can add their programs to the app. 

While Plasticise was originally developed with neurological physiotherapists in mind, it can be used by any clinician who prescribes exercise programs. 

Sarah says they already have paediatric and sports physiotherapists among their subscribers. 

‘There is a lot of breadth to the user base because it is simply a matter of filming your client in front of you. 

‘It can apply to all ages and areas of practice—from paediatrics to older people, neuro to vestibular—anything, really. 

‘With the recent NDIS changes, many participants are now funded for less frequent therapy, especially in regional and rural areas where access was already limited. 

‘This makes regular face-to-face sessions harder to deliver and increases the onus on clients to selfmanage between visits. 

‘In this context, high-quality, individualised home exercise programs can no longer be an afterthought; they are essential. 

‘For clients who may only see their physiotherapist once a month, a tailored home program aligned with their goals is essential for progress, function and independence.’ 

Plasticise co-founders Sarah Turner and Kumbelin Levin.

Sarah says it took about a year from when she and Kumbelin first started talking about the idea until they had a ‘minimum viable product’ in October 2024. 

They have since taken on a software developer—again, a member of one of their families—to continue development of the product. 

It now has 67 therapists using it and 1043 clients. 

The app is based on a subscription model, with sole practitioners and clinics subscribing to use it with their clients rather than clients paying directly. 

The process of applying for Pitchfest was incredibly helpful, Sarah says. 

It ensured that she and Kumbelin really thought everything through and solidified a plan for developing Plasticise. 

The first thing they will spend their winnings on is a better accounting system for sales and they intend to update the app with new features focusing on engagement and motivation. 

In the meantime, they are rolling it out to more clinics. 

To avoid slowing down the rollout, they are working on more streamlined ways to train therapists to use the app. 

‘The number of therapists who got in contact with us after Pitchfest was phenomenal.’ 

Sarah and Kumbelin have moved to part-time employment so they can spend time focusing on Plasticise as it grows its user base. 

They hope to partner at some point with researchers to evaluate the ability of the app to increase home program compliance. 

‘We can see how effective it is but we’re clinicians and business owners first and foremost, so we’d like to link up with researchers with the knowledge and expertise to look at it.’ 

>> Advance Rehab Centre’s director, Dr Melissa McConaghy, served as chair of the Pitchfest judging panel. In strict adherence to the APA’s conflict of interest policy, Melissa was fully recused from the assessment and deliberation of the Plasticise application. She did not engage in any evaluative activities or related workplace discussions. These measures ensured that all conflicts of interest were appropriately managed and that the integrity and impartiality of the judging process remained uncompromised. 

Click on image below to watch a short interview with Plasticise founder Sarah Turner after she and Kumbelin Levin won Pitchfest: