Brooklyn lab team wins $150,000 to test wearable stroke monitor
The team hopes those readings could one day help alert stroke survivors and their care teams to signs of another stroke.
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A team developing a wearable stroke monitor in a NYU Brooklyn lab has won $150,000 to help test it with patients. The company, CaroRhythm, took the top prize at the New York State Commercialization Competition, which helps companies develop new products.
The device, called CaroSense, sits on the neck and uses light to measure blood flow. The team hopes those readings could one day help alert stroke survivors and their care teams to signs of another stroke.
CaroRhythm co-founder and CEO Nisha Maheshwari said it can be hard for stroke survivors to know what to expect once they leave the hospital.
“They often don’t have a lot of direction,” Maheshwari said. “They don’t know if they’re recovering well or not.”
For Maheshwari and co-founder Lokesh Sharma, that concern hits close to home. Both of their grandmothers had strokes. Maheshwari’s mother took on the role of caregiver after Maheshwari’s grandmother left the hospital.
“My grandmother also had a stroke, but unlike Nisha’s grandmother, my grandmother did not survive,” Sharma said.
CaroRhythm plans to use the prize money for lab testing and an early study with patients using the second version of the device.
“We’ve done a lot of work with healthy subjects,” Maheshwari said. The patient study is the next step, and the team is already working on a third version of the device.
