Even Keel Balancer

I am an MS sufferer.  Retired, unwillingly. My MS affects my balance dramatically—I’ve had many falls and some bad breaks because of my lack of balance. I want my balance back, and I want to help restore balance to other sufferers.  The technology exists to help my other senses compensate—it’s time we take that tech and apply it to the problem.

What we need is a device for training eyes and ears to “see” and “hear” a sense of balance. The brain is neuroplastic—it can learn to use other senses to compensate.  That’s where this device comes in. It will take information that the body is no longer interpreting properly and translates it into media the remaining senses can use.

This device will use currently available position sensing hardware (your cell phone has most of it already), to present detailed, accurate and high-speed balance information to a combination display and auditory device. Simple augmented glasses (a small and simple Heads-Up-Display) will present an image that changes position and colour when you achieve balance.  Earphones will present you with various tones to help you reposition your body into balance.

This device may even help with another little-known sense, which is definitely affected by MS: it may help us know what our body is doing, and in what position it is, even when we can't see or directly feel it.  The technical name for this is proprioception.

Rounding up good developers is tricky, but before my MS retired me, I was in that business for twenty-five years, and I have a few connections.  Work will start as we can get people on board.



I would be grateful, both for the opportunity to use such a device myself, and the opportunity to make thousands of others available to those who need them.

 

Overcoming objections:

I am not suggesting a medical device which would require testing and approval—I’m suggesting a device with direct and immediate input—you take that input and move your body to achieve balance. All this device will do is show and tell you when you are balanced. Over time, the body may learn to see and hear the difference in position without the device’s input, but that’s not what this is about—this is about making the device itself.