Augmented reality software can help patients cope with Parkinson’s symptoms

In 2018 Tom Finn took his father, Nigel, to a physical therapy appointment. Nigel was living with vascular dementia, which can present with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurological disorder characterized by motor symptoms such as tremors, stiffness and loss of balance.

The physiotherapist told Finn about the directional markers, the colored lines on the floor, that could help people with Parkinson’s overcome the difficulty of walking. Finn was unconvinced. He couldn’t see how some lines on the floor could help his father. But when they got home, he put some colorful exercises in the kitchen and watched in amazement as his father marched back and forth over them with ease.

The technique, called external cueing, works by using visual, auditory or tactile cues – colored tape on the ground, playing a metronome or physical. vibrations– engage neural pathways that are not affected by the disease. “It can help people focus and help them take that first step and get over freezing,” says Claire Bale, director of research at Parkinson’s UK, which researches and is a supporting charity in the UK.

Although Finn, who works in marketing and video production in London, was surprised by the effectiveness of this simple intervention, he thought it was too basic to be really useful. But augmented reality glasses like Magic Leap were just starting to hit the market. and he wondered if they could design virtual lines on the ground to act as signals.He founded the startup Stroll to try to make that vision a reality.

Two years later, with no staff and around £50 in the bank, Ellis, a New Zealander with a background in furniture startups, came to the UK looking for his next venture and wanted to do something he was passionate about grandfather lived with Parkinson’s disease for more than a decade, and when he met Finn through mutual contact, he immediately saw the promise of the technology as CEO and began trying to demonstrate that AR-based instruction is scientifically sound.

Ellis and Finn soon found a group of academics at the VU University of Amsterdam, led by Melvin Roerdink, working on something similar. Stroll acquired their intellectual property, and with Roerdink as chief innovation officer, they began developing and testing the technology, now called Reality DTx.

Instead of physical strips like Finn’s, Stroll’s AR software simulates colored lines on the floor in front of the wearer, each of which disappears as they wipe it.Clinical testing (with Stroll’s support) confirmed that the indicator technology was feasible and showed promising results.

It can also help rehabilitative exercises in conditions of shortage of physiotherapists; The software includes AR games such as mole and basketball, but is designed around functional movements that help people with Parkinson’s. says that these games can help overcome apathy and depression, which are also symptoms of the disease exercise … but it won’t get you out of your chair,” he says. So the fact that it’s gamified makes exercising that much more appealing.

The Magic Leap headset that runs the software costs around £3,000 ($3,800) and Stroll charges more than £300 a month for his services, but Ellis claims this is more cost-effective than 30 half-hour physical therapy sessions. . Ultimately, the company aims to be “the most widely used recovery software in the world,” Ellis says.They even have a specific timeline in mind. 7 million minutes of recovery with the Stroll device by New Year’s 2029. By then, Ellis hopes Stroll can be used for everything from stroke to multiple sclerosis. There is, he says, “almost limitless potential.”

This article appears in the January/February 2025 issue WIRED UK magazine.