College Student Invents Spoon For Parkinson’s Patients

A college student developed a stabilizing Parkinson’s spoon. Raleigh Dewan said he was inspired by his grandmother after watching as hand tremors made it difficult for her to hold a spoon and share meals with her family. The Southern Methodist University student was determined to find a solution for his Grandmother June and patients like her.

He saw that there were self-stabilizing cutlery sets on the market, but many used motors and electronics to function, meaning they cost more than $200 and required regular charging to function properly. Non-motorized spoons were cheaper, but less effective at countering tremors.
After three years of working on it, the senior at SMU has created the SteadiSpoon, a self-stabilizing spoon that helps patients with hand tremors feed themselves with dignity.

SteadiSpoon has no motors or batteries and was inspired by a principle Dewan discovered on film sets. Dewan’s brothers work in the film industry and he had watched massive cameras swing through the air, capturing chaotic action scenes with smooth, seamless motion. He was captivated by the Steadicam mounts that kept cameras level throughout and wondered whether he could translate the Steadicam technology into a spoon to help his grandmother eat.

The product has received tens of thousands of dollars in seed money and recently won a $20,000 grant from VentureWell, an organization that supports student inventions. After testing SteadiSpoon with Parkinson’s patients earlier this year, Dewan and his team want to improve the design and create a batch for sale by early next year.

At the heart of Dewan’s determination was his love for his grandmother, who passed away in 2020 before he finished developing SteadiSpoon. He said when she passed away he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep working on it since the person he wanted to help was now gone but his grandmother spending her life helping people ultimately inspired him to see the development through.