Around 44 million people aged 15 to 64 in Europe have a reported disability. 26% of people aged 16 years or over living in the Europe declared health-related, long-term (lasting more than six months) limitations in usual activities; 8.2% of them reported a severe, and 17.5% a moderate, disability.
Out of these, an estimated 2.6 million people have mobility problems affecting their upper limbs, and around 1.3 million of them require assistive technologies, to be able to perform everyday tasks. These include people suffering from a range of diseases, including multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, as well as varying degrees of paralysis, among them locked-in syndrome in which a person may only be able to move their eyes.
People affected with mobility related disability faced number of issues in the society, the key being:
a) Discrimination b) Accessibility c) Workforce exclusion d) Limited Education leading to opportunity costs of € 37.4 billion in Europe.
Assistive devices help to improve an individual’s functioning and independence to facilitate participation in the society and employment and to enhance overall well being. The global elderly and disabled assistive devices market was valued at € 15.7 billion in 2016 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 7.4% from 2016 – 2024. North America is the largest market (€ 5.5 billion) for disabled & elderly assistive technologies since it has largest number of people living with disabilities (53 million). On the other hand, Europe is expected to be the second largest regional market which is valued around € 4.71 billion for disabled & elderly assistive technologies.
IntegraMouse3 will fall in the computer access aids segment within assistive devices which is a market of € 3.2 billion. IntegraMouse3’s mission is to help the people suffering from High-level paraplegia, partial arm amputations and progressive muscular diseases by bringing them back to societal inclusion primarily by providing them tools to perform day-to-day computer tasks, play complex games and social media interaction.
IntegraMouse3‘s key tasks will be the development of golden prototype that will be tested at Lifetool’s premises, followed by pilot testing and validation of prototype in a real environment to scale up. This will be followed by commercialization of the product in 2019 focusing on key markets in Europe and North America.
