NEOFECT(www.neofect.com) is a Korean rehabilitation robot company founded in June 2010. They offer the “RAPAEL Smart Glove,” a hand and arm rehabilitation training robot for stroke patients, as well as a variety of other devices and robots for rehabilitative purposes.

The company was awarded the CES Innovation Award last year for their “RAPAEL Smart Glove,” and was selected as one of CNN’s “14 Coolest Tech Products from CES 2017.”

RAPAEL Smart Glove is a hand rehabilitation robot developed to help patients with central nervous system diseases to rehabilitate their fingers, wrists, and lower arms through games. The RAPAEL Smart Glove detects motion through its nine axes and tracks motion through a position sensor and a 32bit microcontroller. One of the biggest complaints in rehabilitation is the tediousness of the training; the other is cost. RAPAEL has offered solutions for both. They have used games to circumvent the boredom factor: NEOFECT’s artificial intelligence analyzes the patient data, then offers each patient an appropriate training game. Moreover, this device is priced more competivtively than other rehabilitation equipment. NEOFECT has developed over 40 rehabilitation games, from simple sports games such as table tennis and baseball to casual games like dart throwing and fruit picking, as these games are a form of rehabilitative exercise.

NEOFECT was founded in June 2010, and four years later, the world welcomed the RAPAEL Smart Glove. The company holds over 30 related patents. After the launching of the product, it caught the attention of the world. Indeed, POSCO Venture Partners, DSC Investments, and other venture capital firms have invested KRW11.8bn in NEOFECT and noteworthy medical institutions such as Samsung Medical Center, Seoul National University Hospital, Severance Hospital have also been working with NEOFECT on various projects.

According to NEOFECT CEO Hoyoung Ban, " NEOFECT is not a hardware startup. We are changing the paradigm of rehabilitation through the fusion of hardware and software." At 132g, this lightweight device makes it portable enough to use anytime, anywhere. Mr. Ban continues, "the patient is able to perform rehabilitation training anywhere – not just in the hospital or at home.”

▲RAPAEL Smart Glove

Last year, NEOFECT was awarded the CES Innovation Award by the US Consumer Technology Association (CTA) for its RAPAEL Smart Glove; the company was awarded again with this year’s CES 2018 Innovation Award for the RAPAEL Smart Pegboard, making it two consecutive years that the company has snagged the coveted CES Innovation Award. The Rafael Smart Pegboard is a device with a digitized pegboard, a training tool used to rehabilitate stroke patients with reduced hand and arm functions. With 63 high-fidelity LEDs and sensors, the patient places pegs into the pegboard, and visual feedback on the pegging movements is available. Over 30 games are contained in this particular rehabilitation training system.

▲RAPAEL Smart Pegboard

"Our proven technology in our stroke rehabilitation training devices – the RAPAEL series – has been validated by our two consecutive wins of the innovation awards," said Mr. Ban. "In this era of the fourth industrial revolution, we intend to create a rehabilitative environment by developing convergent-technology digital rehabilitation devices that can measure data.”

▲RAPAEL Comcog

NEOFECT recently launched the RAPAEL Comcog, which helps those with cognitive disorders such as stroke and dementia patients to rehabilitate through games.

The RAPAEL Comcog is a gaming rehabilitation program used by people with reduced cognitive abilities brought on by stroke, dementia, traumatic brain injuries, brain tumors, and cerebral palsy. It is an Android-based software that runs on devices such as tablet PCs. This is a memory training game that connects words and images and consists of a total of 20 kinds of games such as “name linking,” “face finding” to distinguish an angry face from a happy one, and a “rabbit search” to find on another part on the screen. By using the touch screen to play the game, the patient is participating in his or her rehabilitation. The difficulty level of the games is adjusted according to the patient's reactions during the game, and the results of the rehabilitation training are offered as a graph or table as an objective indicator.

Upon its second CES Innovation Award, the company has been receiving keen inquiries from abroad. With its superior technology currently in the spotlight, world-renowned hospitals have begun adopting their systems. NEOFECTS’s global outlook is bright, indeed.