Eyelid Wearable Can Predict and Alert to Epileptic Seizure

John Jeffay via Israel21c – Blink Energy’s tiny device, fitted to one eyelid, monitors and analyzes blink patterns to detect or diagnose a wealth of health conditions.

A tiny patch is fixed to your eyelid. It monitors your blink pattern and sends a warning to your smartphone that you’re about to have an epileptic seizure.

Or that you’re about to fall asleep at the wheel.

Or else it measures your REM (rapid eye movement) to help diagnose sleep disorders or Parkinson’s disease or a range of neurological conditions.

This isn’t science fiction. This is the next step forward in the world of wearable technology. And according to Yariv Bar-On, CEO at Israel-based Blink Energy, it’s a gamechanger.

The wearables market has been dominated, so far, by smartwatches and fitness trackers. The first Apple Watch was launched in April 2015, and wearable technology now includes jewelry that tracks your steps and notifies you of an incoming call, VR headsets for gamers, earbuds, smart glasses with Internet access, smart clothing integrated with electronic devices and a range of health monitors.

But the world’s first eyelid wearable device opens up a whole new world of opportunity.

Blink patterns

Blink Energy’s device weighs just 0.4 grams (0.014 ounces) — less than half the weight of a paperclip – and is fitted to one eyelid. You barely notice it, says Bar-On. “After two minutes you forget it’s there.”

But it’s performing an important function by monitoring blink patterns, which provides AI with a wealth of data.

“There is one type of muscle that closes the eye, and another that opens it,” says Bar-On, an optometrist and entrepreneur.

“There’s a ratio between those two muscles when they are working, and we can, with AI machine learning, identify abnormalities in the patterns of blinks.”

Smartwatches and other devices measure eye movement indirectly, by collecting related data. Bar-On says they are only 80 percent accurate. His blink patch provides, for the first time, a way of readily measuring eye movement directly.

He says he hopes to launch the company’s first product commercially within two years, at what he describes as an “affordable” price.

Starting with epilepsy

The possibilities for such technology, developed with his small team of engineers in Haifa, northern Israel, are many.

The patch, held onto the eyelid with a disposable adhesive strip that lasts for 10 or 20 uses, can provide data about eye health or eye strain during the course of everyday activities. It can detect drowsiness at the wheel and has other possible uses in health and wellbeing.

But the company had to start somewhere. And that somewhere is epilepsy.

Bar-On wants to lessen the anxiety that people with epilepsy suffer.

“My goal would be to bring epileptic patients more confidence in their daily life,” he tells ISRAEL21c.

“You just wear it outside the house, knowing you don’t have to think about when the next seizure might be. The Blink device will indicate a few seconds before a seizure. But it’s not so much the detection as the fact that the wearer doesn’t have to worry about when the next seizure will be,” he says.

“Knowing that the device will do that, instead of you having to, makes a big difference. Epileptic patients feel when the seizure is coming, but we can dramatically reduce the anxiety levels, which in themselves contribute to a seizure.”

Blink Energy has yet to test its device on epileptic patients. The patch exists as a prototype, but there are still refinements needed before it’s ready for market.

Eye mavens

Bar-On cofounded Blink Energy four years ago with Nadav Cohen, a specialist in optics and vibrations, and Ziv Rotfogel, an ophthalmologist at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot, central Israel.

“We wanted to see how we can look at the eye movement or the physiological signals that can be detected from the eye and develop a product that is beyond what it is on the market today,” he says.

At first their focus was on using the blink movement to power the patch – which is why they chose the name Blink Energy.

“We made a pivot almost two years ago and we developed our own sensor biomarker [which measures biological activity] with communication capabilities but without generating its own power,” he says. The product will recharge inside its own box, just like a pair of earbuds.

“It’s not a me-too technology. It’s more like a really game-changing technology. I believe that in the next five to 10 years to come you’ll see many people walking down the street wearing an eyelid patch,” Bar-On predicts.

“The adoption rate of wearable tech or smart wearables is already immense. This is just the start.”

Blink Energy has received funding from the Israel Innovation Authority and by Israel-based MindUP, which invests in healthcare innovation.

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