Modern technology quite often come to the rescue of the people, especially when it comes to improving the quality of life of people with various incurable diseases. Such as Parkinson’s disease. The phrase “laser shoes” may sounds a bit ridiculous, but how else can you call shoes with small lasers, which they use to help patients with Parkinson’s to move normally on his own two feet?
One of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are the so-called “pause” during the Commission of various movements, such as when one simply goes forward. At some point he realizes that, despite the desire to move on, he just can’t take another step and freezes in place. The length of such “locked up” can last from several seconds to a minute. And what is most dangerous, in these moments people can easily lose balance, fall and hurt themselves.
Most interesting is that in moments such pauses people can recover from this state of “freeze” by its concentration on something near his feet. For something where he could make his next move, making it their goal – whether it’s fallen out of a tree leaf or a crack in the pavement. Of course, such objects under our feet are not at every step. That’s why researchers decided to create a Shoe that with the integrated lasers is continually formed to be the person a new token for further walk. Each boot is equipped with a laser projector, which is activated at the moment when the leg stands on solid surface and begins to project a bright red line on the ground about 45 cm in front of a man. The projector is switched off as soon as the foot is driven, and it is replaced by a second projector, firmly standing on the surface.
Tests conducted with the participation of 21 patients with Parkinson’s disease, convinced scientists that these shoes are really very effective and can significantly improve the quality of life of these people. The number of “hangs” during walking decreased by more than two times. Also reduced the duration of these pauses. Took part in the experiment, the volunteers were very pleased with the new product. The research results were published in the journal Neurology.
For people with Parkinson’s disease have developed “laser shoes”
Sergey Grey