Making strides

Researchers have developed a pair of glasses which could help some people with Parkinson’s disease to walk more normally by giving visual cues in the periphery of their vision.

INDIGO glasses display scrolling cues to stimulate paradoxical kinesis

People with Parkinson’s typically have a slow, shuffling gait. By wearing the spectacles, called INDIGO - INDependent I Go - some are able to regain a more normal length of stride.

The INDIGO glasses display moving lines at the edge of the field of vision. They were developed by the ParkService initiative, a project which is co-funded by the European Commission’s eTEN programme.

Reynold Greenlaw, Senior Consultant with Oxford Computer Consultants and coordinator of ParkService said: ‘We have been involved since 2000, when we met a man with Parkinson’s who was interested in his reaction to certain visual cues.

‘When he lined up pieces of paper on the floor, he could stand up straighter and walk almost normally. We thought, "Wouldn’t it be great if he could see them everywhere he went?" We set up a European project called PARREHA to develop a tool which would do that.’