The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2021
Woojer turned a haptic music vest into cystic fibrosis therapy
Area 23 and Woojer's Sick Beats is a music-powered airway-clearance vest that uses 40Hz haptic beats to deliver chest physiotherapy for cystic fibrosis.
Woojer
the move
Cystic fibrosis patients must clear mucus from their lungs with chest physiotherapy, often a heavy, uncomfortable vest children dread twice a day.
Area 23, an FCB Health network company, re-purposed Woojer's own haptic consumer vest - a device built to let people feel music through their body - rather than building a clinical machine from scratch.
They added transducers, optimized the placement on the lungs and boosted the 40Hz haptic output, then paired it with a curated playlist, so the treatment feels like listening to a song while the vest thumps the chest on the beat.
It took the Pharma Grand Prix and a Gold for product innovation at Cannes Lions 2021, an unusually tech-focused winner in a category mostly dominated by campaigns.
why it works
- Reuse a device patients already find fun instead of inventing a scary one.
- Haptic beats at 40Hz deliver the same mechanical frequency a therapy vest would.
- Nesting treatment inside music makes daily compliance far more likely.
- It won a Grand Prix plus a Gold for product innovation at Cannes 2021.
what transfers
The fastest route to a therapy is a product people already love, re-tuned. Borrow the pleasure device instead of building a scary medical one, and compliance stops being the hard part.
what came after
Sick Beats took the Pharma Grand Prix and a Gold in product innovation at Cannes Lions 2021, and a companion Spotify playlist of 40Hz tracks was created around it. It became a reference for repurposing consumer technology into medical care.
references
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