#gyroglove

By Warren Fuller

Parkinson’s disease is a generally awful disorder to suffer through. The disease affects the nervous system, is progressive, and is marked by tremors and muscular rigidity that can severely affect the sufferer’s movements and ability to perform daily tasks. There is currently no cure for Parkinson’s disease, although some medications can stabilize the symptoms. There is however hope for Parkinson’s patients in a new piece of wearable technology currently in development across the pond.    

The device, called GyroGlove, was developed by Faii Ong along with other students from Imperial College London. The glove works by using mechanical gyroscopes within the design of the device to resist the wearer’s hand movements with proportional forces. The effect of wearing the GyroGlove has been compared to moving ones hand through a thick syrup or, as this is being developed in London after all, treacle. The resistance offered by the gyroscopes within the glove’s casing has been shown, in lab tests, to reduce the wearer’s tremors by as much as 90%.

The GyroGlove will also be paired with a smartphone app that tracks and documents the wearer’s tremor while the glove is in use. The GyroGlove is, however, still firmly in the prototype stage and there are still a few puzzles that the developers have to solve before the GyroGlove is ready to go into production, for example the fact that battery operated gyroscopes spinning at thousands of RPM are exceptionally noisy and not entirely reliable in the current model. Ong remains confident that these challenges will be solved in time for a September 2016 launch date. The cost of glove will be an estimated $550-$850, although nothing has been set as of yet. Ong hopes that the same gyroscopic concepts may be eventually used to develop wearable tremor dampening devices for other parts of the body, especially the legs, as well.

How the GyroGlove Steadies Hands of Parkinson’s Patients 

When he was a 24-year-old medical student living in London, Faii Ong was assigned to care for a 103-year-old patient who suffered from Parkinson’s, the progressive neurological condition that affects a person’s ease of movement. After watching her struggle to eat a bowl of soup, Ong asked another nurse what more could be done to help the woman. “There’s nothing,” he was grimly told.

GyroGlove’s design is simple. It uses a miniature, dynamically adjustable gyroscope, which sits on the back of the hand, within a plastic casing attached to the glove’s material. When the device is switched on, the battery-powered gyroscope whirs to life. Its orientation is adjusted by a precession[sic] hinge and turntable, both controlled by a small circuit board, thereby pushing back against the wearer’s movements as the gyroscope tries to right itself.

#GyroGlove: Un guante para ayudar a pacientes con el mal de #Parkinson

https://twitter.com/wwwhatsnew/status/687821022658048001 vía @wwwhatsnew

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There is a #wearable tech concept specifically targeted for Parkinson’s Disease patients called GyroGlove. Here are some quick facts about this product: Gyroglove is a responsive, wearable glove that minimizes hand tremors. The globe stabilizes the wrist joint using gyroscopes and accelerometers. The functionality helps Parkinson’s disease patients perform everyday functions normally (eating and…