Athenry student achieves Galway's best ever Young Scientist result
Date Published: 16-Jan-2013
An Athenry girl has scooped the top individual award at this year’s BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition, becoming the best placed Galway student in the competition’s 49-year history.
Fifteen year old Edel Browne from the Presentation College in Athenry invented a device that can help people with Parkinson’s disease walk more smoothly.
Her project entitled "Free Feet" involves attaching a simple laser pointer device to a patient’s shoes, which gives them a target to focus on in front of them, improving their mobility.
Her award includes a BT perpetual trophy and a cheque worth €2,400, which is the second overall prize in the competition which this year attracted entries from 1,200 students from 31 counties and 216 schools.
She came up with the idea after hearing how 72% of people with Parkinson’s suffered from gait freezing - where they feel their feet are stuck to the ground - which is caused by a deficiency in the neurotransmitter dopamine in the mid-brain.
“My brother is a movement disorders clinical nurse specialist in University Hospital Galway (UHG) so I knew about it from there. There’s no known cure for Parkinson’s but they’re always finding ways to improve life with it,” explains Edel.
“The idea is the laser puts out a dot on the floor in front of you and if you focus on the dot it changes walking from an automatic movement to a non-automatic movement. In the test group there was an average 39% reduction in gait freezing as a result.”
Edel is following in the footsteps of her three brothers when it comes to scientific prowess – Michael, John and Martin have all won various prizes in the competition. However none had managed to achieve the same degree of success.
Her chemistry teacher, Kenneth O’Dea, was also involved in Martin’s project in 2005.
“I don’t think a Galway school has ever won the top prize so I think that makes Edel the most successful Galway student ever in the competition,” he opined.
See ful story in this week's Connacht Tribune.