ARC: a self-stabilizing pen for people with Parkinson’s disease

The most famous symptom of Parkinson’s disease is the shaking that comes from lack of motor control, because the nervous system is affected. A lesser known symptom of the disease is called Micrographia. As the name suggest, people affected with Micrographia write smaller and small, until the handwriting is only a line.

Lucy Jung, a Korean designer with a history for design that cares about others, came up with a pen that can help people who suffer from Micrographia. Using a vibration motor, the pen will try to correct the handwriting by countering the hand’s tremors. Even better, a small computer inside the pen learns the writer’s behavior and adapts to it, making it a custom tool for each person.

You can see it in action in this video.

The ARC pen wasn’t produced yet, but tests were very promising, with an average increase in legibility of 8%. If will obviously not cure the disease, which is for now uncurable, but it’s already a great step forward if people affected with Parkinson’s disease can keep on writing.