Market assessment of an eating assistive device for people living with movement disorder

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The aim of this project is to complete a market assessment of an eating assistive device for people living with movement disorders. Being able to eat without the assistance of a caregiver is an important step towards autonomy. Unfortunately, many people living with movement disorders such as spasticity, spasms, ataxia and dyspraxia do not have this opportunity. It is indeed very difficult (great effort, not comfortable, spill a lot of food either because of abrupt movements or because they are not able to keep the utensil straight) or even impossible for them to eat autonomously. These movement disorders are linked to diagnosis such as cerebral palsy (43000 Canadians), spinal cord injuries (118000), multiple sclerosis (77000), cranio cerebral trauma, stroke (319000) and Parkinson's disease (55000). It is estimated by the researchers that the invention could directly reach 150000 Canadians (and obviously many more worldwide). The ageing of the population creates more stresses for this situation since we will have to take care of more people losing autonomy but with fewer active resources. **While different assistive technologies have been developed to assist people living with upper body disabilities, our investigations have shown that currently no devices meet the needs of people living with movement disorders (spasticity, spasms, ataxia and dyspraxia) either because they lack in functionality or because they are too expensive.**Our team has thus developed an innovative mechanical solution allowing the system to move in three dimensions while keeping the utensil always parallel to the ground and while reducing the impact of involuntary movements thanks to mechanical dampers.**The objective is to allow people living with movement disorders (spasticity, spasms, ataxia and dyspraxia) to eat autonomously. Within this project, the technology development is performed within a rich interdisciplinary team (mechanical engineering, occupational therapy, kinesiology, physiotherapy) using an iterative user-centered approach with potential users and clinical experts.******************