TechTrends - Product Review: TouchPoints™ basic
This stress-alleviating neuroscience wearable promises to aid in tackling symptoms of conditions such as ADHD and Autism
TouchPoints Basic are another crowdfunding success story. Originally founded in 2015 by Neuropsychologist Dr. Amy Serin and executive child advocate Vicki Mayo, After launching their first device – called TouchPoints Original and priced at $240 – in December 2016. In less than six weeks sales had topped $500,000.
Since then the pair have pursued their dream of helping more people get access the technology so this year they launched an Indiegogo campaign to develop a new, more affordable version of the device, at a much lower price point of $135. The response was incredible and by July 2017 they had reached almost $150,000, 956% of the initial goal, and aim to ship all campaign-related orders by the end of September.
These cunning little gadgets are non-invasive, wearable devices that use patent-pending neuroscience to relieve stress in as little as 30 seconds. Using quantitative electroencephalogram data, existing neuroscience research and archival data, Dr. Amy Serin determined the device produced significant and quantifiable brain changes after just seconds of use.
Over the last decade, Dr Serin’s work in therapy and neuroscience led to a breakthrough realization that a component of successful PTSD treatment could be used as a stand-alone product for a range of individuals whose stress and intensities hamper performance, relaxation, sleep, and their ability to cope with sensory stimuli.
TouchPoints use Bi-Lateral Alternating Stimulation Tactile (BLAST) stimulation to give the user a gentle vibration that affects the brain and alters the body’s fight, flight or freeze response. Check out the TouchPoints Research page for links to the supporting in-house and academic studies.
We are deeply committed to giving back. It is our co-founders’ mission to create a more healthy, peaceful, and productive world through a fundamental shift in the way people understand and handle their stress response by making BLAST technology accessible for everyone.
Feeling pretty tightly wound, as usual, I was dying to experience the benefits of all that lovely science so I strapped on a pair, connected the app via Bluetooth and well… wow! Honestly, the experience was quite strange but after a few moments of tingling and getting used to the vibrations my mind felt clearer, or at least lighter and breathing was a little easier.
I was shocked at the speed of the reaction but the vibrations felt a bit too strong and a too distracting from my train of thought so I stopped them and reset the intensity via the app. With the setting now lower I tried again and left them on for five minutes. I felt a similar clearing of the mind and easing of the breathing but the effect was less strong this time, less abrupt. However, it persisted after I stopped the TouchPoints leaving me feeling calmer, I was genuinely impressed.
TouchPoints uses technology that gently interferes with the body’s stress response and produce a more calm, focused state. Thousands of users report they feel more calm, are able to sleep better, and perform better with use.
No doubt more tinkering with the settings in the app will help find the optimum set up for me but I can honestly say that TouchPoint are on to something here. As a next step, we’re interested to share this with my wife’s grandfather who suffers from Parkinson’s, as TouchPoints’ Indiegogo page reports positive results in helping alleviate anxiety in patients and even achieving reduction of tremors in some cases. Watch this space for updates!
*This article first appeared in Tech Trends on August 2, 2018, by Tom Atkinson. To read the full article, click here.
