[파이낸셜뉴스] Recently, a wrist device (Neupulse) developed for the treatment of Tourette’s syndrome, a severe tic disorder in the UK, is attracting attention by showing its effectiveness.
Medical Express reported on the 13th that the effectiveness of this wrist device developed by Professor Steven Jackson, a research team specializing in Tourette’s syndrome at the University of Nottingham Medical School in England, and Neurotherapeutics, a new company they founded, has been confirmed through clinical trials.
The wrist device developed by the research team, which looks like an Apple Watch or Fitbit smartwatch, sends electrical pulses to the brain via the median nerve of the peripheral nervous system in the wrist to stop brain activity that cause tics.
Tic disorder, where simple movements and sounds are repeated regardless of intention, is common in children between the ages of 8 and 12. In cases where the symptoms are mild, they may go away on their own over time, but Tourette’s syndrome, where repetitive movements (motor tics) and repetitive vocalizations (vocal tics) overlap, can stop you from going to school or work, or interfering. with your social life.
According to the report, the research team conducted a study by randomly dividing 121 young people with moderate to severe tic disorders into three groups. One group wore a real wrist harness, another group wore a fake wrist harness for 15 minutes once a day for a month, and the other group continued their usual treatment.
The research team compared the three groups before and after the clinical trial and measured the severity and frequency of the tics using the Yale Tic Symptom Rating Scale and the Total Tic Severity Score. As a result, the group that used the real wrist device showed that the overall frequency of ticks decreased by more than 25% and that the severity of ticks was alleviated by more than 35% after 4 weeks.
“This wrist device is still in the early stages of development, but we believe it will significantly improve the lives of Tourette’s patients by giving them control over their tics,” said Professor Steven Jackson.
Meanwhile, it is known that the research team has secured 1 million pounds (about 1.585 billion won) to commercialize the wrist device, and they are said to be researching with the aim of launching the wrist device and the app within three years.
The results of clinical trials were published on MedRxiv, a website that publishes the content before it is published in medical journals.
newssu@fnnews.com Reporter Kim Soo-yeon
