Glove to help control tremors

The patient was losing a lot of weight and the doctors didn’t know why. But when he saw her, he figured it out – She had a lot of difficulties feeding herself. “Her hand was shaking and the soup was being spilled”, the student explained.

Two years after this episode, Faii came up with a solution – Gyroglove - a small, lightweight stability device that fits on the back of the hand attached to a minimalist harness. It locks easily in place, and integrates intelligent functionality.

The technology behind this device consists of gyroscopes - Spinning discs used in cutting edge aerospace technology, but no different from children’s toy tops. Gyroscopes conserve angular momentum to stay upright in any plane of motion. These spinning discs thus counter any input of force instantaneously and proportionally.

After evaluating the use of elastic bands, weights, springs, hydraulics, and even soft robotics, the student settled on this solution, one that he recognized from childhood toys. “Mechanical gyroscopes are like spinning tops: they always try to stay upright by conserving angular momentum,” he said. “My idea was to use gyroscopes to instantaneously and proportionally resist a person’s hand movement, thereby dampening any tremors in the wearer’s hand.”

The device has been tested in patients, and the results are very encouraging.

The student founded his own company GyroGlove, and made it to the finals of OneStart, the world’s largest biotech business competition, in 2014.

The product has not been launched yet, but the price will be between $550 to $850.

More info: http://gyrogear.co/

Adapted from: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/545456/hope-in-a-glove-for-parkinsons...

What about you, do you have any solutions? Please share them with the Patient Innovation community!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f10-g8qzMug