Imperial stories: A new device enabling people with arm disabilities to do more.
In a new long-read piece for their Imperial Stories series, Imperial College London have featured the makers of a new device which is enabling people with arm disabilities to do more physical training. This has been shown to be particularly important during the pandemic when access to in-person physiotherapy has been impacted.
The device, called gripAble™, is a lightweight electronic handgrip, which interacts wirelessly with a standard PC tablet to enable the user to play arm-training games. Dr Paul Bentley, who is an honorary consultant neurologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust leads the research project and is a clinical advisor for the Imperial start-up company that have made the device.
To use it, patients squeeze, turn or lift the handgrip, and it vibrates in response to their performance whilst playing. The device uses a novel mechanism, which can detect the tiny flicker movements of severely paralysed patients and channel them into controlling a computer game.
