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#InventedAtImperial: Charco Neurotech
#InventedAtImperial
Charco Neurotech
Charco is restoring the quality of life of people with Parkinson’s disease, as well as those with other long-term conditions, through simple and effective non-invasive medical innovation. The startup’s first product, CUE1, is a wearable device for people with Parkinson’s that uses pulsed cueing and focused vibrotactile stimulation to reduce symptoms of slowness and stiffness. The problem In 2013, we met a gentleman who said: “I’m very happy now, but I look angry because Parkinson’s disease took away my smile.” Since then, our aim has been to bring smiles back for people with Parkinson’s. Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting around 145,000 people in the UK. It has no cure. Despite the best medical and surgical treatment available, many people remain frustrated by their disease. It’s characterised by the symptoms of bradykinesia, rigidity and tremor, but has many other symptoms which are often difficult to treat. This is exacerbated as the symptoms progress with ageing. This has a
significantly negative impact on independence, health and quality of life. The solution Building on the work of namesake Professor Charcot, a nineteenth-century doctor nicknamed the father of neurology, we’ve developed the CUE1 wearable device. It uses pulsed cueing and focused vibrotactile stimulation to reduce slowness and stiffness in those living with Parkinson’s disease, resulting in their improved movement. Developed by a diverse team of engineers, doctors and neuroscientists, CUE1 offers a novel, non-invasive approach to increasing quality of life for people with Parkinson’s. Using removable medical adhesive to rest on the sternum and activated by the simple
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push of a button, the CUE1’s vibrotactile stimulation can provide an immediate relief of symptoms. User testing has resulted in an average improvement of nine points of the UPDRS score (the gold standard for assessing Parkinson’s) – three times the minimum improvement required for an invention to be considered clinically important. We’ve also seen improvement across movement tasks, such as using tools, manipulating objects, walking and more. Most importantly, participants felt their movement was smoother and better controlled. Where did the idea originate? Our development process starts and ends by listening to people with Parkinson’s.
The initial spark came from a conversation we had with a gentleman who told us he experienced some relief from his Parkinson’s symptoms after sitting in a massage chair. From here, we dug deeper to find the mechanism behind this, becoming familiar with Professor Charcot’s work on full-body vibration to treat Parkinson’s, as well as the more recent body of research into the benefits of focused vibrotactile stimulation and cueing for people with Parkinson’s. We constructed several prototypes based on our research and spent time with a fantastic group of people with Parkinson’s to test them, see what worked and what didn’t, and improve our device. Without their incredible generosity and input, we wouldn’t have
been able to refine CUE1 into what it is today, so we’re eternally grateful to them! How did your team meet? Our founders, Lucy and Floyd, have known each other for years and had already worked on several projects together while Lucy carried out her Master’s in Innovation Design Engineering at Imperial and Floyd trained as a junior doctor. The rest of the team has formed over time through our networks and by talking to people at events such as the Imperial Enterprise Lab Innovation Pitch, which is where we met our Operations Manager, Alex. The binding element, common to all our team members and essential to any new additions, is moral fibre and passion for helping people via the implementation of simple, Issue 4 / 2021–22
