The intelligent "artifact" invented by this 17-year-old boy can prevent Alzheimer's patients from walking around.
Release date: 2016-05-10
Today, many countries face the problem of an aging population. Therefore, the demand for medical services and products for geriatric diseases will inevitably increase. To meet these needs, the corresponding Medical Equipment is essential. This is why in recent years there have been a lot of emerging companies around the world that focus on developing home medical instruments. One of the award-winning SensaRX LLCs is one of them.
SensaRX was founded on July 22, 2014 by the 17-year-old American teenager Kenneth Zhizhi. The company is headquartered in Manhattan, New York, and is separated from the famous Lincoln Performing Arts Center by two or three blocks. The SensaRX, which is still in its infancy, operates on a smaller scale with a long-term number of employees of less than 10. The current product is a product designed for a special need in Alzheimer's care, called SafeWander.
source of creativity
Alzheimer's disease is a major manifestation of Alzheimer's disease, which accounts for approximately 60% to 80% of patients with Alzheimer's disease. The usual manifestations of the disease are forgetfulness, cognitive decline, and inability to distinguish people around them. In addition to the above-mentioned symptoms that are almost 100% manifested, there is also a high incidence of symptoms that adds great difficulty to the monitoring of Alzheimer's patients. This symptom is to go around. According to data released by the Alzheimer's Association, an authoritative organization in the United States, 65 out of every 100 patients show signs of chaos.
The inventor of SafeWander, Kenneth Zhizhi, has long been plagued by the symptoms of his grandfather Feng Deming. Kenneth’s aunt took the initiative to take care of the elderly sleeping at night. However, due to this task, Kenneth's aunt has long been lack of sleep, and his health has gone from bad to worse. Kenneth, who is almost 14 years old, is determined to find a way to solve the problem of nursing care when his grandfather is sleeping.
When Kenneth saw his grandfather get up, the moment he wore the foot of the sock inspired his inspiration. If a pressure sensor is installed on the grandfather's foot to detect this pressure change, and the detected signal is sent to the receiver, the receiver immediately gives an alarm after receiving the signal, then the grandfather gets out of bed and the aunt will immediately know. Since the signal can be transmitted wirelessly, as long as the sensor can accurately detect the change of the foot pressure when the grandfather gets out of bed.
After several months of hard work, Kenneth finally turned the idea into reality and developed SafeWander's entire first generation.
Kenneth Zhizhi (left) and grandfather (right)
The product has undergone many improvements
In 2014, 15-year-old Kenneth won the "Google Science Challenge" award with SafeWander and received a $50,000 prize from the organizing committee (according to the exchange rate of the year, equal to about 307,000 yuan). In order to allow more people with Alzheimer's disease to enjoy the benefits of SafeWander, Kenneth decided to commercialize the product, so he created SensaRX with the bonus and the support of friends and family.
Since its inception in early 2014, SafeWander has undergone several improvements and has been molded for three generations. Third generation products: angle sensor (middle), wireless signal receiving and transmitting device Getaway (right) and supporting iOS application (left)
In the third generation, Kenneth launched a new sensor, the angle sensor, and added signal receiving and transmitting devices to the product. In addition, the supporting application also integrates multiple opinions and adds many new features. The new sensor is only the size of a regular coin and can be attached to any close-fitting clothing, including socks, underpants, and pajamas. Unlike the sensors in the previous two generations of products, the new sensor no longer judges the patient's intention to get up by detecting changes in the foot pressure when the patient goes to bed, but by detecting the patient's waking from lying to lying down. This angle of state changes to determine if the patient has gotten up. The change in the working principle of the sensor enables the guardian to know the patient's intention to get up faster. When the patient got out of bed, now the patient just got up in the bed, so that the guardian can not only stop the patient from happening in time. Symptoms, and can come earlier to help patients get up to prevent falls, falls, etc. caused by physical weakness.
In the case of WiFi, Getaway can send the signal sent by the sensor to the guardian's mobile phone via the Internet, which enables the guardian to know the patient's movement in time. The addition of Getway also increased the number of guardians from one to more, so that the guardianship task can be shared by multiple family members. The third-generation iOS app adds the ability to receive multiple sensor signals from a mobile device. This also satisfies the need for a guardian of a rehabilitation facility to look after a number of patients.
First: the carrier of the sensor gets up, the sensor detects a change in the body angle, and sends the detected signal to Getaway;
Second: Getaway receives the signal, connects to WiFi, and sends the signal out through the Internet;
Third: The guardian's mobile phone receives a signal to send an alarm; the guardian hears the alarm and comes to see the sensor's carrier.
Company operation status
Since the story of Kenneth's development of SafeWander has been reported, many readers have clearly expressed their willingness to purchase products in the comments. After more than a year of product improvement and testing, people finally waited for the launch of this product in November last year. Among the first customers, there are not only individuals but also many service agencies including rehabilitation centers and nursing homes. These customers all reported that the third-generation SafeWander has a very good monitoring effect. These feedbacks indicate to a certain extent that SafeWander is a product that is favored by the market.
Kenneth and his team are currently focusing on the following three areas:
First: Develop Android app packages. Currently SafeWander is only available with the iOS version of the app, in order to facilitate customers and expand the user base, SensaRX will launch the Android version of the app earlier this year;
Second: Find a manufacturer. In an interview with CNBC in April this year, Kenneth said that the SafeWander kits currently sold were produced at his home. In order to promote the product quickly, he is working hard to find a manufacturer;
Third: promote products and finance. Kenneth has taken SafeWander to participate in several exhibitions and innovation technology competitions, using these platforms to promote SafeWander and finance.
In an interview, Kenneth expressed the hope that SafeWander will be promoted as soon as possible to ensure the safety of more Alzheimer's patients, and more importantly, to use a large database to collect data from many patients to help Scientists have found the cause of Alzheimer's disease going around.
market expectation
On March 24 last year, the American Alzheimer's Association published a report. The report said that Alzheimer's patients in the United States have reached 5.3 million, and it is estimated that by 2050, the number of patients will increase to 13.8 million. The association also investigated the number of patients with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and found that 65% of the patients surveyed had this symptom. Using these two sets of data, estimates are made without additional patients, and there are now about 3.4 million Alzheimer's patients in the United States who need a monitoring service similar to SafeWander. According to data released by the Pew Research Center at the end of last year, the US now has a middle class and above accounting for 70.4% of the total US population, considering that SafeWander's current set price is not high at $249 (about 1611 yuan). A conservative estimate - calculated at 50% - is now about 1.7 million people willing to buy SafeWander. From the current market feedback, at least 90% of these people will become long-term customers. According to the service life of SafeWander batteries and sensors (the battery is about one year, the sensor is about two to three years), these long-term customers will be in the future. Replace the battery and the primary sensor twice in two or three years.
Looking at the world, SafeWander's market will be even bigger. On August 27 last year, the International Alzheimer's Disease Association published the "Report on the World Alzheimer's Disease 2015: The Global Impact of Alzheimer's Disease". According to the report, in 2015, 9.9 million new cases of Alzheimer's disease in the world will increase by one every three seconds. It is estimated that the number of global dementia patients will rise from the current 46 million to 131.5 million by 2050. And more than half of the patients will appear in developed countries with strong purchasing power and developing countries such as China with rapid economic development. (The International Federation of Alzheimer's Diseases conservatively estimates that there are now 9 million Alzheimer's patients in China, which will grow to 30 million in 2050, more than the combined total of developed countries.) According to statistics, 60% of global Alzheimer's patients are 80% are dementia patients of the type Alzheimer's disease.
The report also analyzes the development of medical expenses in the United States due to Alzheimer's disease.
Currently, SensaRX is a small-scale company with mature products. Although the product has a large market space, it is still unclear whether the company lacks funds for mass production and product promotion, and whether the CEO's education will affect the company's operations. However, the above problems can be solved by financing and forming a good management team. Once the above problems are solved, the development prospects of SensaRX are very promising.
Source: Arterial Network
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