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Innovative toilet assistive device enabling people with reduced mobility to become independent

Project description

Enabling people with reduced mobility to independently take care of hygiene needs

People with impaired mobility, common in conditions such as spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy, often experience loss of bowel control and require assistance for their hygiene needs. They are also at risk of developing pressure ulcers, which, if undetected, may develop into life-threatening infections. The EU-funded Dignum project intends to assess marketability of a multipurpose device that allows people with reduced mobility to independently look after their toilet needs. The device, equipped with a screen, camera and lights, facilitates users in inserting enemas, cleaning, wiping and checking themselves for skin ulcers. It will significantly contribute to enhancing the quality of life and health of end users.

Objective

People with reduced mobility often suffer from bowel problems. Spinal cord injury (SCI), multiple sclerosis (MS) and cerebral palsy (CP), are some of the illnesses that lead to the loss of the ability to control the bowel reflex. The loss of bowel control often means that the evacuation requires extensive amounts of time and the assistance of health care providers or attendants. Moreover, bowel dysfunction is one of the most devastating sequelae of these patients, because it not only affects morbidity, but it also can severely disrupt a person's quality of life.
IndGear has developed an innovative assistive, multifunctional device – Dignum - which enables for the first time, people with reduced mobility to use bathroom and perform bowel care and multiple hygienic tasks on their own, such as insertion of enema, cleaning, wiping and inspection for pressure ulcers. Dignum can be safely used by people with reduce or none sensation in the lower body since the device has an integrated module for visual inspection (screen, camera, and lights) which minimizes risks of injuries to the perineum and anal region.
The SME Phase 1 project will be crucial for the maturation of the business plan, including the analysis of reimbursement schemes and regulatory work and the development of a business model compatible with geographical market expansion and growth. In the SME Phase 2 Project we aim to clearly demonstrate and validate the benefits of our device through large scale demonstrations – crucial for a wide penetration in this sector.
Overall, this project opens not only an important economic opportunity for IndGear - expecting over €17.1 million revenues, 5 years post-project - but will ultimately lead to contributing significantly to improve quality of life of end-users as well as important cost savings for the society.

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020

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Coordinator

INDEPENDENCE GEAR AS
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 50 000,00
Address
GAUSTADALLÉEN 21
0349 Oslo
Norway

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Norge Oslo og Viken Oslo
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 71 429,00
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