Proception

What is Proception?

Proception captures your body's position and movements and transmits this information to vibration on your fingertips. Your brain then perceives this representation of your body's position and movements.

Do you have altered proprioception?

Proprioception is the sense of where your body is in space. Poor or absent proprioception may be due to; Cerebellar Aataxia (Spinocerebellar Ataxia, Cerebellar Stroke, Acquired Brain Injury of Cerebellum or Cerebral Palsy primarily effecting cerebellum) or damage to spinal nerves (spinal cord injury) or peripheral nerves that are transmitting proprioceptive information (peripheral neuropathy). Symptoms may include poor balance, unsteady gait and poor coordination.

Interested in trialling Proception for free?

Balancer

Vibration represents where your weight is compared to where your feet are. Why? Because your feet are what connects you to the ground and this balances you while you're standing and walking.

Reacher

Vibration represents where your hand is compared to your chest.

How does it work?

Proception reads your body’s position and expresses it as fingertip vibration in real time. Each finger represents a direction of movement:

Thumb = Up

Index finger = forward

Middle finger = backwards

Ring finger = inwards

Little finger = outwards.

The distance is communicated through the intensity and speed of vibration:
The further the movement, the faster and stronger the vibration becomes.

Why is proprioception/body awareness important?

Proprioception is essential for balance and essential for accurate, coordinated movement. Proprioception also plays a crucial role in learning to move. Proprioception helps you:

Know where your limbs are without looking
Walk without stumbling
Reach accurately
Move with control and confidence

The human brain has an amazing ability to learn. We learnt to speak, we learnt to understand speech, we learnt to walk, we learnt to make sense of the light our eyes capture, we can learn to play instruments and we can learn to read brail. We can learn to make so much meaning from very complex things with practice and when they are meaningful to us.

The device is made of haptic gloves which have a small vibrating coin on each finger tip. Two small computing modules. A top and pants, made from elastic material. We are working to make the device even more wearable. Within the top and pants are eight small measuring devices, connected via small wires. The device is calibrated to your bodies proportions to maximise accuracy.