Today, 19th December 2022
The world has rapidly evolved in the past decade. Most recently, it has been progressing at a rapid pace with the rise of quantified-self and digital twins inspired by devices we carry with us everyday. These devices, Smartphones and Smartwatches, are capable of understanding our human bodies and minds like never seen before.
While the human body is quite an advanced piece of machinery, our brains are still puzzling for many. It leaves even the most prolific scientists with thousands of unanswered questions and hypotheses.
Available sensors combined with powerful algorithms are able to understand our body’s health such as with sleep quality, blood pressure, body’s temperature, and much more. In order to get a full understanding of our brain health in the comfort of our daily lives, we have had to address a whole set of new challenges, until today.
In fact, early detection is key to the care of patients with neurological conditions. Many patients do not seek care until ten years after the onset of the disease where brain cell death is too significant at that stage.
Two companies have been working together on brain health monitoring and detection technologies based on personal keystroke patterns. In other words, the way you type on your smartphone becomes the biomarker of your brain health — paving the way toward a world where neurological diseases are detected as well as treated many years before they occur.
The company pioneering this new era of digital neurology is nQ Medical based out of Cambridge and Madrid. nQ Medical who recently has been featured with a prominent permian exhibit in the new MIT Museum of Technology, has developed a series of algorithms capable of detecting early signs of cognition and motor deficits similar to what can be found in patients with early stage Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) simply by typing on your smartphone virtual keyboard or mechanical laptop keyboard. This solves the lack of affordable, accessible, and validated tools to assess Brain Health in the market.
To achieve its objective, nQ Medical has been leveraging the virtual keyboard expert in the space, Fleksy. Known and reputed for being the fastest touch type keyboard in the world, Fleksy or more specifically its fully customizable software development kit, has been powering the nQ Medical Keyboard for the past several years now. By having full control over Fleksy’s technologies, the Cambridge healthcare company has been able to further advance their R&D and Clinical Trials on a proven typing experience.
Richie Bavasso, CEO of nQ Medical, shares, “Digital health holds enormous potential for improving clinical care of people with neurological disorders (PwND). However, there is an often overlooked burden on people seeking to use these tools. Most digital health solutions require the individual to purchase a proprietary device and participate in a task-based app. Both the cost and fatigue of these tools impact adherence and, thus the intended benefit.”
He adds, “nQ has worked very closely with Fleksy to deliver to this patient population a passive digital health solution that works on the individuals’ personal device (smartphone or computer) and requires no active participation. We have jointly delivered something very unique, powerful, and of great benefit to PwND.”
Olivier Plante, CEO of Fleksy adds: “It is a true privilege to help the nQ Medical team monitor and detect early signs of neurological diseases very accurately thanks to our keyboard development kit”
Sri Mruthik, nQ Medical’s CTO says: “The easy integration and consistent performance of the Fleksy SDK enables us to deliver a powerful keyboard experience for our users, while helping us to focus on our domain and algorithms”
In the coming years, nQ Medical will leverage its FDA clearance to deliver the nQ/Fleksy keyboard to hundreds of thousands of PwND through its Virtual First Neurology Care Solution, called NeuroCare. Bavasso adds, “We will continue to leverage Fleksy’s deep expertise in the virtual keyboard space by introducing new sets of innovations in Healthcare.”
Fleksy is further supporting nQ Medical as well as powering various other applications which require a custom keyboard experience.
About nQ Medical
nQ Medical is redefining the management and treatment of neurodegenerative disorders with technology to measure brain function continuously and passively from human-computer interactions on ubiquitous mobile devices. The company is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is backed by DigiTx Partners, Esplanade Ventures, and Poplar Ventures. To learn more, visit www.nq-medical.com
About Fleksy
Fleksy is an award-winning virtual keyboard technology provider. The Fleksy Software Development Kits (SDKs) enable developers and companies to overcome the challenge of building a top-notch typing experience across various platforms. Its clientele can then focus on their area of expertise & value-add for a monthly licensing fee. For more information, visit www.fleksy.com
