Why It’s Breakthrough: The GaitAid combines virtual reality programming and real-time motion detection into a cell-phone sized device that helps PD (Parkinson’s disease) and MS (Multiple Sclerosis) patients regain their natural ability to walk normally. The movie below shows an earlier version of the device with a Parkinson’s patient.

The Story:

Based on concepts formulated while working on a NASA project which improved the ability of pilots to navigate low-flying helicopters around tall objects, Professor Yoram Baram, CEO of Medigait LLC, made a serendipitous breakthrough for Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. Using his breakthrough discovery, Professor Baram invented a high-tech virtual reality device called the GaitAid Virtual Walker.

Medigait is re-introducing the GaitAid Virtual Walker to the market after locating a reliable high quality US-based medical device company to manufacture it for them.

This cellphone-sized device helps patients with PD and other movement disorders greatly improve their stability while walking through a process called neuroplasticity. This process essentially rewires the patient’s brain by creating new healthy circuits to bypass disease-damaged areas that once controlled the patients walking.

Clinical studies have shown major improvements to walking speed and stride length in 70% to 85% of PD patients after only two weeks of 30-minute practice sessions. According to Itay Kavaler, his 68 year-old father and ten year PD patient once again walks like a healthy person. He states his father’s walking began improving immediately with his first use of the GaitAid Virtual Walker.

Roughly 1.5 million people in the U.S. and another 1.6 million in Western Europe live with Parkinson’s disease. Some estimates go as high as 6 million people worldwide who suffer from PD. Although a cure hasn’t been found, the GaitAid device offers a safe, effective, and non-pharmacological method for helping PD patients walk better. Walking better leads to more productive and safer lives.

As Parkinson’s disease progresses, gait impairment can become more pronounced and often turns dangerous. Characterized by shuffled walking, freezing, loss of balance, and falling down, Parkinson’s patients suffer increasing frustration as their condition worsens.

Because many PD patients are in their 60s and older, the consequences of falling can turn deadly. In fact, one of the more tragic causes of death in PD patients isn’t even from the disease itself. Instead, it’s from pneumonia resulting from being bedridden by broken hips and other problems resulting from injuries due to falling while walking.

“Gait velocity and stride length were improved in PD patients after training with a marked residual effect. Devices utilizing closed-loop visual feedback system are desirable non-pharmacologic interventions to improve walking in PD,” said Alberto J. Espay, MD, of The Neuroscience Institute, Department of Neurology, Movement Disorders Center, at the University of Cincinnati.

Clinical studies appearing in the medical journals Neurology, Neural Processing Letters, and Journal of Neurological Sciences described the device as being effective as medication or surgery, but without the risk or adverse side effects. Links to this information can be found at Clinical Studies.

http://www.gaitaidmedical.net