AWARD YEAR
2015
CATEGORY
Body
GOALS
Good Health & Well-being
KEYWORDS
Parkinson's disease, handwriting, vibration
COUNTRY
United Kingdom
DESIGNED BY
Dopa Solution
Danny Walklin
Hwansoo Jeon
Lucy Jung
Tian-Jia Heish
WEBSITE
http://www.dopasolution.com
Arc
The first therapeutic vibrating pen enabling larger, cleaner writing for people with Parkinson’s
ARC is the first pen specifically designed for people with Parkinson’s living with Micrographia. This condition can result in small, cramped and often uncomfortable handwriting. Many people with this motor control difficulty give up the practice of writing or drawing altogether. Dopa Solution’s aim is to focus on higher level needs in order
to have the greatest impact on people’s lives. By utilizing high frequency vibration motors within ARC, we are able to facilitate larger and clearer writing by stimulating the key muscles in the hand as well as reducing the effort required to move the pen across the paper.
ARC prototypes have been trialled and developed in conjunction with fourteen people with the symptoms of Micrographia, demonstrating an overall improvement in writing of 86%.