Google announced Wednesday that it has bought Lift Labs, the creator of a spoon designed to help people with Parkinson's and similar diseases eat.
The spoon, called Liftware, is designed to vibrate in order to stabilize tremors and counter the patient's hand movements when the spoon is raised to the mouth, according to CNET.
Lift Labs will work in the Life Sciences Division of Google X, the search giant's branch that focuses on projects like balloons that beam Wi-Fi and driverless cars. While the company will work out of Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., it will still be making and selling Liftware. Neither company has revealed the cost of the deal.
There are 11 million people in America suffering from tremors or Parkinson's disease, which can cause problems when the person tries to lift a utensil, The New York Times reported. Dr. Kelvin Chou, a neurology professor at the University of Michigan who works with Lift Labs, said eating has a huge effect on social interaction.
"It's embarrassing for them, and they feel like people are watching them all the time," Chou said. "I've had patients say 'Someone came up to me and said I should stop drinking.' Things like that."
Anupam Pathak, founder of Lift Labs, believes the technology can be integrated with a variety of hand-held devices to help people with these issues.
"People struggle with all sorts of things," Pathak said in an interview. "The key. Makeup applicators. Handheld tools. Once you start to lose the ability to function independently, there's a huge emotional toll. For a woman to be unable to put makeup on by herself, people will often just avoid going out in public."
Google's purchase of Lift Labs is the company's latest move in its involvement in human health, CNET reported. Such moves include giving its support last year to the California Life Company (Calico), which works to create medicine that would increase the human life span, and announcing a partnership last week with biopharmaceutical company AbbVie to build a research facility that would develop treatments for age-related diseases.
Lift Labs said by joining Google, it will be able to expand its operations. A spokesperson for Google said Lift Lab's technology has the ability to "improve quality of life for millions of people."
