SleepEasy
Helping Parkinson’s Patients sleep better
Patent pending
Project overview
Upto 60% of Parkinson’s patients suffer from REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder. That makes for 6 Million people out of the 10 million suffering from Sleep Disorder worldwide.
SleepEasy is the secure, protective and comfortable blanket system designed to prevent Parkinson’s patients suffering from REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder from injuring themselves or their loved ones while asleep.
SleepEasy was a part of Invent@IITGN 2018, a 6 weeks rigorous summer program to research, conceptualise and prototype a product that meets a significant need. It has been awarded as the 3rd Best Invention and has been filed for Patent in India and US. Since, we had to file a provisional patent in the end of the program, extreme care of novelty, non-obviousness, practicality and usefulness was done through literature reviews, prior art search, expert insights and intensive prototyping.
Role
UX, Research, Prototyping, Ideation, Modelling
Stakeholders
IIT Gandhinagar
The Copper Union
Guided by Prof. Eric Lima,
Prof. Alan Wolf
Partner Anshuman Dhar
Project duration
June - July 2018
Secondary Research
People suffering from REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder (RBD) experience violent episodes while being completely asleep. Although, they have absolutely no recollection of it when they wake up. In the meanwhile, they might end up harming themselves or people they love.
Pain points
While 96% of injuries Parkinson’s patients happen due to RBD, there is no effective cure.
People rely on medicines (which make them feel drowsy during the day) and various restraints (not comfortable at all) to prevent themselves from harming people they love.
In fact, no alternatives are presently available which take into factor a Parkinson’s patients intermittent tremors, joint stiffness, inability to control drool while asleep and limitation of movement in getting in and out of the restraints without the help of any caregiver.
IDEATION AND PROTOTYPING
We decided to focus on one thing - improving the quality of sleep.
Imagine not having the freedom to toss and turn freely while sleeping. Imagine having to constantly worry about hurting the ones you share bed with. Unfortunately, this is what Parkinson’s patients deal with, everyday.
To ensure we kept the experience the same with one goal in mind - our product should not hinder natural movements and only restrain violent movements. The centrifugal clutch mechanism allows normal movement but on a jerk, it stops. It does not hinder normal movement, making the person feel completely at ease.
We A/B tested each material for durability
We attached an acceleration sensor to the blanket to see if it was successfully stopping any sudden impacts to restrain violent movements while being slack to allow for natural sleeping movements.
FINAL SOLUTION
After multiple iterations, while finalizing our design we kept four things in mind.
Easy to get in and out of
Easy to install
Breathable and not feel hot
Completely durable and washable
SleepEasy will allow a patient with Parkinson’s for possibly the first time in a long time to have a full night’s sleep without injuring themselves or their loved ones.