Anupam Pathak noticed that his friends with essential tremor had trouble eating in a social setting. As part of the solution he developed the Liftware spoon.
Both essential tremor and Parkinson's disease force people to focus on the task of controlling their spoon, taking them out of the experience of eating and socializing during a meal. To counter this, the Liftware spoon senses a person's tremor and intelligently stabilizes itself as the spoon is lifted to the mouth.
During product testing trials on average more than 70% reduction in tremor was achieved for people who used the spoon. The device has been endorsed by the National Institutes of Health, the American Academy of Neurology and Active Cancellation of Technology.
The device comes with the spoon attachment, a discreet carrying bag and a charging unit. The spoon itself is washable when not attached to the body. Plans exist for fork and knife attachments in the future but no prototypes or demonstrations are yet available on the website.
Lift Labs the company is working on a full range of products all based around bringing accessibility to people with Parkinson's and essential tremor. The Lift Pulse app answers patient requests for tremor measurement and monitoring. The patient holds the phone in their hand for ten seconds and then receives analysis data showing frequency visualization data and a color scale to show tremor severity.
Lift Stride is a gait-steadying technology that gives patients visual cues to help in their mobility problems. The app can measure your stride and send you signals through a Bluetooth headphone that help to keep a measured step.
Accessibility is a huge field of opportunity for us as engineers. My umbrella definition of engineering as 'making the world a better place' applies to any segment of the population that can have their lives improved by a product or process. Seeing the Liftware spoon in action and knowing that the company has plans for a range of products is great.