A Pakistani start-up company has built a smart watch for tremor patients, which will help them in diagnosing the severity of the disease and also judge the impact of prescribed medication.
Tremors are a neurological condition in which the hands, head or legs of the patient shake unintentionally.
Trequant’s Tremor Quantifying device not only helps in effective self assessment but also keeps doctors and families updated with reports, reads a statement on the product’s website.
The company says that the main motivation behind designing the smart watch was to manufacture a “device that draws no attention to it and definitely does not look like a medical aid”.
“The device looks like a conventional wrist-watch. This protects the patient’s privacy and saves them from intriguing questions by onlookers.”
One of the challenges to effective treatment for tremors is diagnosing the severity and judging impact of prescribed medication — Trequant’s smart watch solves that problem.
The device has the ability to be synced with smart phones/laptops via Bluetooth.
A dedicated application works on tracking and analysing tremor patterns. The data is then saved on cloud and ready to be shared with doctors and family members.
The head of Neurology Sciences Department at Shifa Hospital, Dr. Maimoona, said: “This device will not only help in diagnostics but also in guiding therapy, moreover, it’s very practical, handy and useful.”
The device tracks tremor patterns via kinetic sensors and transmits the data to a smartphone through Bluetooth.
In turn, the phone can sync the data with cloud storage. This data is critical in identifying the severity of a patient’s tremors and judges their response to prescribed medication. Not relying on anecdotal proof, doctors can now finally have hard data to guide a patient’s therapy.
There’s a ring around the watch-face that can tell you the remaining battery at a glance.
On a single charge, it can last two days while the watch itself can keep a backup of data for 24 hours in case you don’t have a smartphone with you.
Other features include notifications for incoming calls, messages as well as sleep monitoring and alarms. Once the watch does go live, early birds will able to get it for around Rs20, 000 while the regular pricing will be set at around Rs25, 000.
It’s hard to explain the kind of positive impact Trequant can have for people suffering from tremors. The improvement in quality of life that can result from a faster and more accurate diagnosis can be life changing for tremor patients.
