Wearable device controls Parkinson’s tremor

Emma Lawton, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s when she was 29, appeared on the new BBC TV series ‘The Big Life Fix’ on Wednesday 7^th December at 9pm. Emma is featured on the program alongside some of the UK’s leading innovators who are creating ingenious solutions to everyday problems and digital products to improve the lives of people in need.

Helping Emma write her name
Emma, a graphic designer, has been unable to use a pen since developing tremors in her hands 2 years ago. She struggles to draw or write her own name – a problem that has had a profound impact on her life both personally and professionally. In the episode, Emma teams up with Haiyan Zhang, who is a Director of innovation at Microsoft, and they work together to find a solution. The episode can be watched here.

Haiyan Zhang invented a wearable device, eponymously named after Emma, which stabilised Emma’s tremors, allowing her to write her name again.

In the episode, Zhang explains her inspiration for the invention with a spoon previously created that counteracts the tremors from Parkinson’s through vibrations in opposition to the movement of the hand.

Inspired by the idea to use vibrations to steady tremors, she invented with tiny vibrating coin-cell motors. She tested her prototype on people with Parkinson’s and found that the device shortcuited the loop between the brain and the hand, in effect distracting the brain with the vibrations of the motors.

More information: BBC