Laser of hope for Parkinson’s patients

Walking may seem like a natural and effortless movement for the able-bodied, but it’s not so for those down with Parkinson’s disease.

People suffering from the disease don’t have enough dopamine, which functions as a neurotransmitter in the brain, impairing its ability to instruct the movement of muscles, thus hindering their mobility.

In many cases, they need to learn to walk again. Hong Kong entrepreneur Denis Huen Yin-fan aims to guide patients in their steps with the help of a set of devices called WalkAid.

For people with Parkinson’s disease, they could suffer from the “freezing of gait” symptom, rendering them unable to move all of a sudden even if they try to, or simply lose the confidence to walk for fear of falling.

WalkAid, with a visual cue device, a pair of vibrating insoles and a smartphone app, can help patients take their steps.

The laser device, strapped to the user’s waist, will shed a straight light on the ground to instruct the patient to step as far as the line goes, while one of the insoles gives out a vibrating tactile cue indicating which foot the patient should lift, and step forward on the line.

The smartphone app will record the performance of the patient’s walks and sound an alarm when the patient falls.

Huen, who founded local startup MedExo Robotics, has been a robotics aficionado since childhood.

Yet, his enthusiasm was hardly shared or supported by his family, he told the audience at StartmeupHK Festival — the city’s entrepreneur event held last month.

Despite the lack of encouragement, Huen continued to dig into robotics, and proved his prowess through innovative projects, which included a robotic leg for amputees and a wearable robot that helps to calm the trembling hands of patients with Parkinson’s disease.

After attaining a bachelor’s and two master’s degrees in physics from top universities in Hong Kong, he pursued higher studies in the United Kingdom, securing another master’s degree — this time in medical robotics — in 2015.

The year 2016 was a turning point for him when he launched his startup MedExo Robotics in Hong Kong, and became a PhD candidate at the University of Oxford in the UK.

However, in order to devote his full attention to the development of his enterprise, he decided to suspend his PhD course for three years. Currently, in the second year of his self-imposed suspension, Huen aims to launch WalkAid in mid-2018.

WalkAid has already undergone trial runs with small groups of patients in Hong Kong, and the company is ready for small-scale production with suppliers and manufacturers well prepared, Huen tells China Daily.

One set of the WalkAid devices would be priced from HK$2,000 to HK$3,000 when it hits the market.

According to the Hong Kong Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, the disease affects one in 800 people worldwide, with approximately 8,000 patients in the SAR. For elderly people above 60, the prevalence rate can reach 1 percent.

As the city’s population continues to age, more than 10,000 people would be affected by the disease, the organization estimates.

According to data from the Census and Statistics Department in 2017, the city’s graying population will accelerate in the coming decades and, by 2036, one out of three Hong Kong people would be over 65 years old.

While population aging will be a major demographic trend for the world in general, the Chinese mainland would be among the hardest hit.

By 2035, the number of elderly people aged 60 or above on the mainland would reach 418 million, according to a report by Beijing-based China Research Center on Aging.

While an aging population exerts huge pressure on health-service systems, it also creates opportunities for startups to cope with the problem through technology.

With WalkAid, Huen is targeting global markets, including the Chinese mainland, Southeast Asia, the UK and the United States, besides Hong Kong.

Apart from the WalkAid set, MedExo Robotics is developing a wearable robotic jacket that can suppress the tremor and support the frail muscles of patients with Parkinson’s disease as it fully covers their upper limbs.

But, Huen is looking beyond the disease with his jacket in the making to benefit people with impaired mobility, such as people who have suffered a stroke, in their rehabilitation training.

The elderly population may not be the only group to benefit from the robotic jacket, he believes, as caretakers and even factory workers can use the support from the jacket to perform manual labor.

“It has the potential to be a daily life device in a larger market, as a jacket with power,” Huen envisions.