| This product automatically and instantly stabilizes any soft, slow movement that is made, which would allow someone to make coffee, cook, eat, etc. | |
| London (R. Kingdom). – People with Parkinson’s disease would finally find answers to their uncontrollable tremors in a glove. But not just any glove. The «GyroGlove» seeks to stabilize the patient’s hand and control tremors by mechanical means, giving high hopes, since there is currently no cure for this disease. Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative neurological disorder that is estimated to affect the daily lives of between 7 and 10 million people worldwide, according to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. Although medications are valid early treatment, they progressively become less effective and have several side effects. This glove works with a spinning top that helps stabilize the wearer’s hand as the top stays upright when it spins. This means that it resists any input of force (such as tremors), immediately and proportionally. «You are able to make smooth, slow movements, and any fine shake is automatically and instantly counteracted. You are able to do what you need to do: make your coffee, cook, that sort of thing,» says Faii Ong, founder of GyroGear. – How did it all begin?
The 26 year-old who was studying medicine, saw a woman who was struggling to eat. «She was trying to drink her soup and then spilled it all. I spent the next half hour cleaning her up and asked the nurses why they didn’t do anything. They said that because of her condition, there was nothing really they could do for her,» he explained. That was the inspiration to create the glove. Ong can today tell the story of a 71 year-old woman who had suffered from Essential Tremor for 40 years and tested the device for the first time. «Even with our most simple prototype, which currently is about 4 or 5 months old, she was able to take a bottle of water. It was a beautiful moment because it represented a point where we could say yes, all that effort has been worth it» Hel began researching and testing different materials: elastic bands, weights, springs, hydraulics and robots, until he opted for the simplest, after seeing it on children’s toys: mechanical gyroscopes. These gyroscopes try to stay upright and Ong wanted to transform this concept into a glove. Gyroscopes instantly and proportionately resist the movement of the hand of a person, thereby damping hand tremors of Parkinson’s patient. According to the first patients who have tried the GyroGlove, the feeling when putting the glove on is as if the hand is submerged into thick syrup which causes the movements, even though they are unrestricted, to be slower. So far, the GyroGlove is a bulky prototype, but Ong hopes that it will be available in the UK in September at a price between 570 and 870 dollars.
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Source: http://www.proyecto-salud.com.ar/shop/detallenot.asp?notid=11778
