Kentucky Serendipity

A Helping Hand from Technology 1 April 2015

April is Parkinson’s Awareness Month. About one million people in the US have Parkinson’s disease including about 3% of those over 60 years of age. A primary symptom of Parkinson’s is muscle tremors which usually affect the hands and feet. The shaky movements which result from tremors make many daily tasks difficult for Parkinson’s patients. Two companies have announced or released products which benefit people who suffer from muscle tremors in the hand. One product is the Liftware Smart Spoon and the other is the ARC pen from DOPA Solution. The products use the same technology as employed in some digital cameras for image stabilization. The digital cameras, Smart Spoon and ARC pen have sensors which detect movements which would result in instability in the image, spoon or pen, and the devices counteract these movements in order to increase stability. The result is a clearer image, a spoon which doesn’t spill, or writing which isn’t “spidery”. The technology is very interesting — it is the kinetic equivalent of noise cancelling headphones — and the latter two products clearly assist people in performing tasks needed in everyday life therefore increasing their independence.