Friday, March 29, 2024
HomeMedicineMedical TechnologyLiftware Utensils – Making Eating Easier for Patients with Hand Tremor

Liftware Utensils – Making Eating Easier for Patients with Hand Tremor

Liftware utensils with stabilizing technology have been reported to ‘cancel’ hand tremors by 70% in movement disorder patients so that they can eat easily.

Movement disorders have a debilitating effect on simple tasks that most of us take for granted in our everyday lives.

Lift Labs, a company that focuses on designing technologies for people with neurodegenerative disease, wants to help those with Parkinson’s Disease and Essential Tremors increase their independence when eating with a new device that compensates for hand tremors.

Liftware is a stabilizing handle with utensil attachments that has built-in sensors to detect hand tremors and uses a small computer to counteract the movement, making it much easier to eat with a spoon or a fork.

In a preliminary clinical study involving 11 participants, Liftware stabilizing technology was tested in three critical tasks: holding, eating, and transferring objects with a spoon.

When turned on, the device proved to be extremely effective and was reported to reduce tremor amplitude in all tasks by approximately 70%.

Liftware works most effectively for people with mild to moderate tremors (4-12 Hz) and has a rechargeable battery that lasts for several meals.

The starter kit which includes a soup spoon attachment costs $295 US online.

At this time Liftware does not ship to locations outside of the United States, but Lift Labs and their technology was acquired by Google X, the research division of Google, in September 2014.

Liftware Website: http://www.liftware.com

Pathak A, Redmond JA, Allen M & Chou KL. A noninvasive handheld assistive device to accommodate essential tremor: A pilot study. Movement Disorders, May 2014 Volume 29, Issue 6, Pages 838-842.

Written by Fiona Wong, PhD

RELATED ARTICLES

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest News and Articles

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTERS

Stay Connected
10,288FansLike
820FollowersFollow
249FollowersFollow
2,787FollowersFollow

Article of the month

Don’t Wait to Vaccinate: Cervical Cancer Jabs Most Effective at Age 12

Researchers from across Scotland scoured more than a decade’s worth of health records to assess just how well a nationwide secondary school vaccination campaign...

Joke Of The Day – March 29

- Doctor, by what symptoms can you determine the development of dementia? - Well, I already told you about this yesterday...

RECENT COMMENTS

ADVERTISE WITH US

error: Content is read-only and copy-protected.