Twenty-three-year-old woman invents award-winning epilepsy kit

[Upsound, James Dyson Foundation video]:

“My invention is called Cocoon. It’s a portable epileptic safe space.”

That’s 23-year-old inventor Uma Smith, who put the design skills she learned at New York’s Pratt Institute toward a device she hopes will make life easier – and safer - for those with epilepsy.

Smith being one of them.

(SOUND BITE) (ENGLISH) INVENTOR AND EPILEPSY PATIENT UMA SMITH SAYING:

“I was inspired by my own difficulties living with epilepsy. I’ve been in the hospital four times for seizures, three of which I had in fairly dangerous locations, with no one around me who knew what to do for epileptic seizures.”

So she came up with Cocoon, a portable device to protect an epileptic’s head from injury and even provide first-aid instructions for those nearby.

This “epileptic safe space,” as she calls it, is to be used as soon as a person experiences an aura – which are usually flashes of light or blind spots at the beginning of a seizure.

(SOUND BITE) (ENGLISH) INVENTOR AND EPILEPSY PATIENT UMA SMITH SAYING:

“Once you feel the aura, you unfold it and it becomes the epileptic safe space. So it opens like that [pops open]. And at that point you would put your head under this mesh.”

The mesh keeps a person’s head in place on an anti-suffocation pillow.

First aid instructions for bystanders are printed on flaps - or, if the sufferer is alone, a sensor inside detects the start of a convulsion and a SIM card calls an ambulance if the seizure lasts more than 5 minutes.

At least 3.4 million people in the United States suffer from epilepsy, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cocoon earned Smith the national James Dyson Award, part of a broader international design competition that celebrates young designers’ innovation and ingenuity.

She received $2,500 and will advance to the international round – the winner of which will be announced November 14.