Member Article

Louis’s helping hand transforming lives

A North East physiotherapist’s ingenuity is poised to help improve the lives of thousands of people across the UK suffering limited use in their hands due to debilitating medical conditions.

Louis Bell has turned his inspired idea into a medical device after seeing how the patients he treated struggled to use traditional hand splints to complete everyday tasks such as brushing their teeth or eating a meal.

His AbleHand device easily fits into the patient’s palm and allows them to insert objects into it such as a knife and fork, pens and a hairbrush, vastly increasing their range of movement and independence.

Now Louis, an NHS senior back care advisor with Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, has seen his device exhibited at the Physiotherapy UK 2014 conference in Birmingham, with a view to selling the product into NHS hospitals and to private purchasers.

The AbleHand assistive hand splint is being hailed by health professionals as a significant step forward in the treatment of people suffering from conditions which affect hand or upper limb function.

A lack of movement in the upper arm and hand can affect people with Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis or people who have suffered a stroke.

Louis, of Witton Gilbert, County Durham, said: “I was treating an ex-patient of mine who basically kept on breaking existing hand splints which were purely designed to maintain the hand in one position.

“I thought something more robust and flexible was needed to increase functionality and independence in the upper limb by encouraging the user to perform manual tasks such as drawing, writing, eating and brushing their teeth, while retaining a functional hand position.

“One patient is now able to write their own name for the first time following a head injury sustained in a road accident and another person with learning disabilities is now able to feed themselves for the first time. When you see something helping someone to achieve these things, it’s a nice place to be in.”

Louis has brought his AbleHand device to market with the support of NHS Innovations North, the technology transfer arm of the NHS, Teesside University and his manufacturing partner Medical Devices Technology International (MDTi).

NHS Innovations North based at RTC North, Sunderland, work with NHS professionals like Louis to identify, protect and commercialise their ideas to improve the lives of hospital patients. NHS Innovations North is a service delivered by RTC North on behalf of the Academic Health Science Network for the North East and North Cumbria.

“Louis came to us with his superb idea, he knew exactly what he wanted it to be and we worked with him to protect his intellectual property and find his commercialisation partner in MDTi,” said Anna Taylor, NHS Innovations North Intellectual Property Manager.

To see Louis demonstrating how AbleHand works, follow this link:

http://www.mdti.co.uk/Products/Rehabilitation/ablehand.html

For more information about NHS Innovations North, visit www.nhsinnovationsnorth.org.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Gordon Arnott .