Written by Annie Pullar
Produced online by Kurravi Piggott
A device to help brain to bladder function among geriatric patients is one of the newest medical innovations being hatched in Brisbane.
The discrete anklet is helping give confidence to the incontinent.
QUT alumni and creator Nyree McKenzie says it is all about convenience.
“When you have a chose between adult pads and nappies, invasive surgery or taking medication with side effects and you weigh that up again a wearable non-invasive device it’s a very attract alternative,” Ms McKenzie says.
Users only have to be wear the anklet for 20 minutes and is helping give hope to the five million people struggling with the indignity of incontinence.
“The stimulation or the pulsation on that lower leg normalises the neural communication between the bladder, bowl and brain and that restores the voluntary control over urge and frequency,” she says.
This non-invasive device was one of the winning inventions at the MIT boot-camp held in Brisbane.
It is only the second time the boot camp has been held outside of Boston, with more than 6000 applicants, from 30 different countries entering the competition.
MIT has helped create more than 25,000 start-ups through its international student boot camps.
QUT’s entrepreneur in residence, Tim Mc Taggett, says the intensive program is key to business innovation.
“The MIT just wraps that whole understanding of customer needs, business needs and market needs around the idea which makes it a much better chance of becoming a successful venture,” Mr Taggett says.
QUT Business School Executive Dean Professor Robina Xavier was part of the final judging panel and says the device gives a clear argument to a better solution.
“It was clear that there was a need for something different,” Professor Xavier says.
“There was some technology they could demonstrate that was having some good outcomes in early studies.”
Ms McKenzie’s team is now set to pitch the anklet band to Australia’s leading technology incubator for prospective funding.