GyroGlove

GyroGear


GyroGear designs and builds innovative, wearable technology which can positively transform the way that individuals live their lives. Their products include GyroGlove – a wearable, mechanical stabilisation system for people with the kind of hand tremors which are associated with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and Essential Tremor (ET). Even though the latter is eight to twenty times more common than the former, no specific drugs have been developed for ET – so the current management of hand tremors is often symptomatic. The quality-of-life (QOL) improvements of conventional, medicated treatments are compromised by significant side effects and the eventual loss of therapeutic efficacy. As a doctor, our founder consistently encounters customers who wish there was an alternative that would ‘restore independence’, ‘give [their] life back’, allow them to ‘just be able to eat and dress’, ‘stop bothering others’ and ‘stop [their] families from worrying’. By directly stabilising the hand, GyroGlove offers a novel approach which complements and potentially offsets current therapeutic treatment. A series of specifically-crafted gyroscopes (spinning disks), coupled to the hand, resist movement, thereby maintaining their orientation by storing large amounts of energy through spinning, compensating both instantaneously and proportionately. Users experience a firm but gentle force acting on their hand, creating an overall effect which feels as though the hand is moving through viscous treacle, thus keeping it steady. The product is not activity-specific, so can be used to carry out activities and tasks which, previously, might have been difficult or impossible, such as eating, drinking, writing or doing-up shoelaces. The beauty of the GyroGlove is its simplicity. Small, sleek and reliable, it can restore quality of life and improve self-confidence – and though still in development, it is conservatively expected to stabilise hands by 70%.

Image: GyroGlove