FedNor, Northern Ontario's economic development agency, handed more than half a million dollars to a Sudbury company that has created a medical therapy device that helps stroke victims recover the use of their hands.
Sudbury MP Viviane Lapointe made the announcement April 21 on behalf of FedNor minister Patty Hajdu to provide $528,550 to iRegained Inc., a company that has created the MyHand™ device.
Lapointe described the device as allowing stroke patients to practice their hand dexterity, either at home, or in a clinical setting.
While the bulk of the grant money will be used for late stage development and validation of the prototype machine, money will also be used for a youth internship.
"An additional $30,000 in Northern Ontario development program funding will be used by iRegained to hire a protocol development youth intern,” she said.
“The intern's primary duties will include assisting with the software programming and automation required to complete late stage product development.”
Altogether, said Lapointe, this will contribute to 17 jobs.
"Simply put, we need to make it easier for Canadian businesses to innovate, to grow and to create jobs in Canada and certainly in Sudbury. And these are highly skilled jobs right here in Sudbury. So this is great news and congratulations," she said.
Vineet Johnson, the founder and CEO of iRegained, said he was pleased and grateful for the funding announcement and also pleased that it was being developed and creating jobs in Sudbury.
"We are excited about the potential that our MyHand™ system holds, not only in terms of its capacity to improve the rehabilitation success rate of stroke patients but also for the specialized jobs that it will create," Johnson said.
The iRegained website said the rehabilitation approach is function oriented.
Therapists can ask a patient to focus or identify what daily living task they need to achieve, such as holding a coffee mug, holding a pen, holding a toothbrush or playing a guitar. Therapists can then target their rehab on specific hand functions.
The work of creating and developing the therapy device was done at the NORCAT centre on Maley Drive. NORCAT CEO Don Duval remarked that one of the hardest things about developing a new device is the entrepreneurial effort required to reach success and get the product to market.
"So kudos to you and your team. And kudos to FedNor for seeing the opportunity to invest and help you grow, and grow faster; create jobs, and create sustainable economic prosperity for the North," Duval said.
Duval remarked that work is not only important from the medical sense, but also for business.
"It really inspires those other would-be entrepreneurs who are thinking about taking that journey or that next step to start their own business," Duval said.
Also speaking was iRegained's chief technical officer Michael Dolinar, who said he was pleased to be part of the team bringing real improvement to the lives of stroke survivors.
"To stroke survivors iRegained is an opportunity to be able to do up a shirt button or a zipper, to get dressed on their own. It's a chance to be able to prepare food or a beverage on their own. iRegained is an opportunity to get their independence back and to live their lives with freedom and autonomy," Dolinar said.
"None of this would have been possible without the funding we've received from FedNor and the help from NORCAT," he added.
The final speaker at the event was Sudbury retiree David Leblanc, a stroke survivor of eight years.
He gave a poignant testimonial recalling what he said was the fantastic work of doctors, nurses and therapists at Health Sciences North (HSN) who helped him learn to sit, stand and walk again. They saved his life, Leblanc said.
Through it all, the one constant thing was that he did not get full use of his hands, said Leblanc. A few years ago, Leblanc met Vineet Johnson and the team developing the MyHand™ device. Since then, Leblanc said he has re-learned simple things like holding an apple, buttering a piece of toast or taking dishes out of the dishwasher.
"That reason that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if it wasn't for iRegained and the MyHand™ system, I and many others like me would not be living the lives that we do now. The ability to regain the use of our hands would not have been possible otherwise, their technology would have a huge impact on everyday lives of countless individuals who have suffered a stroke," Leblanc said.
