Innovative technologies for effective rehabilitation of swallowing impairment

Distinguished Professor Maggie-Lee Huckabee has been working for patients and with patients to develop innovative technologies for effectively rehabilitating swallowing impairment for over 40 years. As a former clinician-turned-researcher and now start-up founder, Maggie-Lee ensures her research is clinically salient, reflects patient needs and can be translated out of the University to impact and improve patient well-being.

In 2014, she founded the University of Canterbury Rose Centre for Stroke Recovery and Research, a multi-disciplinary research and clinical facility focusing on innovative rehabilitation approaches using bioengineering applications for stroke rehabilitation. In this centre, patients are considered partners in research, and while receiving state-or-the-art intensive treatment, they inform new developments. An early employee of the centre was Eric Knapp, an ex-patient whose experiences and feedback are fundamental to research development.

Prof Huckabee and the Rose Centre’s biomedical engineer, Esther Guiu Hernandez, developed the Biofeedback in Strength and Skill Training (BiSSkiT) software and treatment protocol as a research tool. In 2016, this software was commercialised, and clinicians have purchased it in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Feedback from end-users and further market surveys revealed that clinicians loved the approach but lacked the resources for intensive treatment and were hungry for telehealth options.

Redevelopment of the initial device led to BiSSkApp – an app-based biofeedback device for home use that uses a small wireless sensor under the chin to display a waveform on the app. This inventive methodology allows patients to ‘see’ swallowing and refine motor patterns. Patients complete intensive training at home, with data transfer via a cloud facility to clinicians, who can remotely supervise and adapt the treatment programme as needed.

Swallowing Technologies Ltd was incorporated in April 2021 as the commercial ‘arm’ of the UC Rose Centre, transferring technology from the laboratory to patients and clinicians who need them. The company, situated next door to Prof Huckabee’s research lab, has now grown to four full-time and four part-time employees, all committed to developing patient-driven technologies that improve patient outcomes.