Mother creates weighted cape to help her special needs daugther

Marna Pacheco adopted a little girl, Millie, who suffers from complex developmental trauma disorder and severe post-traumatic stress disorder. She has low cognitive abilities, is mostly nonverbal and has trouble socializing, as a result of the early childhood trauma she suffered in the orphanage.

In the journey to learn more about their daughter’s condition and to find tool to help her, Marna took her daughter to see a occupation therapist, who suggested that the use of weighted items could be beneficial to Millie. However, when Marna started searching the market, she found that the only products available where very unattractive and “institutional-like”.

So Marna took matters into her own hands and used her sewing skills to make a fashionable and practical weighted cape for her daughter to wear throughout the day, helping to keep her calm. As Marna explains “With her newly created fashionable weighted cape, Millie was able to self regulate enough to handle the sensory overload she encountered every day. Her new found capability inspired us to create premium weighted blankets, fashionable weighted wraps, and delightful sensory tools.”

And so, Marna and her partners created CapeAble, a company dedicated to creating products for individuals with several different types of condition, like anxiety, sleep disorders, sensory processing disorders, autism, dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. They’ve developed their own SmartWeight® technology, through which the items are filled with small glass beads that provide the wearer with evenly distributed weight and compression, that adjust to any body shape and size.

With the growth of the company, they have also started manufacturing medical-grade products, to be used in a hospital setting. A controlled study of their weighted blanked in oncology patients showed reduced pain and anxiety as well as better tolerance during the infusion treatments.

About the impact of her innovation, Marna states that “We changed the way weight has been used in the past and we know so much more today about how we can help both children and adults. My daughter’s inspiration is touching thousands of people, and I’m grateful that I get to be her voice to make a difference in people’s lives.”

Adapted from:
http://www.inkfreenews.com/2016/12/05/local-womans-daughter-inspires-bus...
https://www.ifai.com/resources/small-business-center/worth-the-weight-an...

More information: https://www.capeable.com/