Klick’s Lab Sympulse Tele-Empathy Device

Tele-empathy device allows caregivers to really feel Parkinson’s symptoms.

A Canadian company has created a device that can offer a glimpse into what it’s like to have Parkinson’s disease so others can better understand the daily frustrations of the debilitating disorder.

Klick’s Labs Sympulse is a first of its kind device that can record the tremors of actual Parkinson’s patients. It can then wirelessly transmit the data to a second device worn by a caregiver to allow them to truly feel what the patients feeling.

The device, which resembles a blood pressure cuff, is strapped around the forearm, with a battery and motor pack providing the tremors.

This is intended to create empathy, to make you feel that having tremors is actually very debilitating.

By wearing the device and trying to perform everyday tasks, users can learn how tough it is to do simple things, such as buttoning a shirt, slicing a tomato, or signing your name.

The device could be helpful not only for caregivers, but for physicians who find their sense of empathy erodes after years of working with patients.

Empathy is really hard to learn. Some people are good at it and some people find it hard. This is the first time that technology is helping us learn the skill must faster.

Sympulse is a ground breaking Proof of Concept that wirelessly records and transmits patient tremors in real time to help foster clinical empathy and better care for the more than 40 million people living with movement disorders.

The tele-empathy device records continuous electromyogram data from the patient and wirelessly transmits it via Bluetooth to a custom-engineered electrical muscle stimulation arm band for non-patients.

Other types of disease and condition symptoms can be quantified and digitized using wearables with sensors that measure everything from the glucose level of someone’s tears and air flow and blood oxygen saturation levels. As a result, Klick Labs is also exploring symptom transference for diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/tele-empathy-device-allows-caregivers-to-really-feel-parkinson-s-symptoms-1.3381948

Leave a reply