Science Fiction Dictionary
A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z

 

GyroGlove Idea For Parkinson's Was Suggested In 1926

The GyroGlove is designed for people with the tremulous symptoms of Parkinson’s, a disease that affects one in 500 people; it holds out hope for an otherwise hopeless problem.


(GyroGlove video)

Faii Ong was assigned to care for a 103-year-old patient who suffered from Parkinson’s, the progressive neurological condition that affects a person’s ease of movement. After watching her struggle to eat a bowl of soup, Ong asked another nurse what more could be done to help the woman. “There’s nothing,” he was grimly told.

Ong, now 26, didn’t accept the answer...

Together with a number of other students from Imperial College London, Ong worked in the university’s prototyping laboratory to run numerous tests. An early prototype of a device, called GyroGlove, proved his instinct correct. Patients report that wearing the GyroGlove, which Ong believes to be the first wearable treatment solution for hand tremors, is like plunging your hand into thick syrup, where movement is free but simultaneously slowed. In benchtop tests, the team found the glove reduces tremors by up to 90 percent.


(GyroGlove as it will be released)

In his wonderfully wacky 1926 story An Experiment in Gyro-Hats, Ellis Parker Butler puts forward the idea of a gyro-hat to help people who had over-indulged in spirits to walk a straight line:

The idea of a gyro-hat did not come to me all at once, as some great ideas come to inventors. In fact I may say that but for a most unpleasant circumstance I might never have thought of gyro-hats at all, although I had for many years been considering the possibility of utilizing the waste space in the top of silk hats in some way or other. As a practical hat dealer and lover of my kind, it had always seemed to me a great economical waste to have a large vacant space inside the upper portion of top hats, or high hats, or "stovepipe" hats, as they are variously called. When a shoe is on, it is full of foot, and when a glove is on, it is full of hand; but a top hat is not, and never can be, full of head, until such a day as heads assume a cylindrical shape, perfectly flat on top. And no sensible man ever expects that day to come...

She then told him of the gyro-hat I had invented, and explained just why I had come to this place and, had swallowed the strong brandy. I took no part in this conversation, but Walsingham gladly agreed to accompany us, and he put my gyro-hat on my head.

The result was indeed marvelous. Instantly the vacuum pump began to work and the gyroscope to revolve. My head, which had been lying on one side, straightened up. The rubber sweat band gripped my head tightly with a slight pulling sensation. Without assistance I arose from my chair and stood erect. My brain was still confused, but I walked as straight as a string direct to the door of the restaurant, and stood holding it open while my wife passed out with the ever staggering Walsingham.

The gyroscope was revolving at the rate of three thousand revolutions a minute, and the slight humming was hardly noticeable...
(Read more about the gyro-hat)

Via Technology Review.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 10/18/2016)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )

Related News Stories - (" Medical ")

MouthPad Supports Head And Tongue Tracking
'The operation that had transformed half his body... had located the control switchboard in his teeth.'- Alfred Bester, 1956.

Drug Induces Hibernation-Like State In Humans
'... drugged and chilled and stowed in sleep tanks.' - Robert Heinlein, 1951.

Drug To Regenerate Teeth In Humans
'We want to do something to help those who are suffering from tooth loss or absence,' said lead researcher Katsu Takahashi.

Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI
'Stasis, cold sleep, hibernation, hypothermia, reduced metabolism, call it what you will - the logistics-medicine research teams had found a way to stack people like cordwood and use them when needed.' - Robert Heinlein, 1956

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's   1950's
1960's   1970's
1980's   1990's
2000's   2010's

Current News

Miss Alabama Beauty Contest Offers Different Standards
'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'

Has Musk Given Up On Full Self Driving (FSD)?
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'

Prufrock-3 'The Monster' Ready To Launch
Just go for it.

Drones In Vast Airborne Grids
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'

Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle
Love those special edition spaceships.

Capturing Asteroids With Nets
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'

Project Hyperion - Generation Ship Designers Needed!
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'

AI Welfare Position At Anthropic Filled By Human
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'

Marslink Proposed By SpaceX
'It was the heart of the Solar System's communication line...'

Simple Way To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'... designed to foil facial recognition systems.'

Wood-Panelled LignoSat Launched
'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'

Laser-Beam Welding In Orbital Factories
'His contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory.'

'Iceberg House' Of Travis Kelce Reflects Science Fiction Of Past Century
'The basement was huge... carved deep into the rock that folded up to underlie the ridge...'

Mechazilla Arms Catch A Falling Starship, But Check Out SF Landing-ARMS
'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'

A System To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'

Robot Hand Separate From Robot
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.