VibeForward was developed by Resonate Forward LLC, a UD startup company.  It evolved from early work on the PDShoe at UD’s Parkinson’s Clinic by Ingrid Pretzer-Aboff, a UD alumna, former faculty member in UD’s College of Health Sciences and now an associate professor of nursing at Virginia Commonwealth University. Resonate Forward is loaning VCU several VibeForward devices to test the effects of vibration on Parkinson’s tremor and on Parkinson's gait and balance issues.

The new funding is part of an MJFF initiative launched last fall to evaluate non-pharmacological interventions for the treatment of gait and balance disturbances that have the potential to significantly improve the daily lives of people with Parkinson’s.

Only eight projects from around the world were awarded grants, according to an MJFF announcement.

A step forward using vibration

While at UD, Pretzer-Aboff’s work with the PDShoe aimed to help people with Parkinson’s to walk more steadily and smoothly by providing vibration that was synchronized to the heel strike and toe-off of the person wearing it.

Early evidence showed that vibration therapy applied to the feet can help reduce freezing of gait. The researchers don’t know with certainty how the mechanism works. Pretzer-Aboff said the vibration may trigger an alternative pathway for movement generation in the brain. It also may be that the vibration is stimulating the nervous system, thus enhancing the communication channel between the brain and foot.

Resonate Forward licensed the PDShoe technology through UD’s Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships and developed it into a miniaturized, patient-friendly prototype that can be discreetly worn on both feet and ankles. Seed funding from UD’s Horn Entrepreneurship Blue Hen Proof-of-Concept program and Delaware’s NSF Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) provided support to get the startup off the ground and enabled technical advances on the device. Specialized training through the NSF I-Corps Sites program, administered by Horn Entrepreneurship, fostered the team’s innovation mindset as they work to transition the technology into a marketable product.

Richard Martin, UD associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, joined the Resonate Forward team as chief technology officer in 2017. He and his student Theodore Fleck, a junior studying computer engineering, have been working to improve VibeForward’s electronics and communications capabilities. It’s both a professional and personal labor for Martin, whose father has Parkinson’s and experiences freezing of gait.

“I remember walking with him at a church service and he just stopped and said ‘I can’t move my feet.’ It’s hard to understand, but it just does that,” said Martin.

Initial work under the MJFF grant will focus on determining how large a dose of therapeutic vibration is needed, for how long and at what intensity, in order to reduce the occurrence and severity of freezing of gait episodes.

“We’re starting to piece together what is working, or not, and why. This new funding is validation that what we’re doing is important for the people we want to serve,” Pretzer-Aboff said.

Members of the Resonate Forward team include:

• Bruce Chase, a former DuPont Fellow and research professor in UD’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering;

• Scott Jones, professor of accounting in the Department of Accounting & Management Information Systems in Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics;

• Theresa Litherland, a UD alumna and former DuPont engineer who earned her MBA in entrepreneurship/entrepreneurial studies from Lerner College in 2016;

• Rick Martin, a UD alum, a former W. L. Gore engineer and currently an associate professor in UD’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering;

• John Rabolt, a former IBM Research Scientist and Karl W. and Renate Boer Professor in UD’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering;

• Ingrid Pretzer-Aboff, a UD alumna, former faculty member in UD’s College of Health Sciences and now associate professor of nursing at Virginia Commonwealth University;

• Param Sreekanth, an expert in new ventures and mergers and acquisitions, formerly with DuPont.