A haptic glove showcased at Innovate 2016 in Manchester could bring a sense of touch back to the hands of stroke victims.
Nigel Clarke is CEO of Hampshire-based Morgan Innovation & Technology, a firm which designs, develops and manufactures products in medical and commercial industries.
The glove is used in conjunction with virtual reality to give users the opportunity of feeling the action they are performing while ‘seeing’ it from a first-person perspective.
“With a stroke often you lose the sensations of picking up a hot cup of coffee [for example],” he told BusinessCloud.
“You’ll know what it should feel like, but you actually don’t feel it.
“Thimbles on the end of the fingers could give temperature, pressure and vibration sensations.
“We’ll enable you to stimulate the fingers and the hand into what it actually feels like – and that will retrain your neural pathways to then retrain your brain and hopefully get the feeling and sensation back into your hands.”
Morgan IAT was among 100 to win a place at Innovate. Clarke said its ethos is different to many similar companies.
“The original concept came out of the University of Southampton and we are still working with them,” he said.
“We’re a bit different: we invest up to 20-30 per cent of our turnover back into R&D – our own ideas, ideas from university, individuals and doctors.
“We’re not solely motivated by money – we’re motivated by helping people, enabling people, to get their ideas to market.
“We’ll often do the work free of charge or discounted.”