Tourette Breakthrough Device Brings New HopeHealth

One teenager’s everyday life transformed

Among those who have tried it is 15-year-old Ollie from Cheshire, who has lived with involuntary neck movements for nearly two years. The movements made everyday activities such as eating, drinking, sleeping, reading and writing difficult, and kept him away from school for months. His family described the change once he began using the device as immediate, saying it gave them part of their everyday life back.

Tourette syndrome is a neurodevelopmental condition in which symptoms usually begin in childhood, most often between the ages of five and ten. It causes sudden, repeated and involuntary movements or sounds, known as tics. Motor tics can include repeated blinking, shoulder shrugging and head jerking, while vocal tics can involve throat clearing, sniffing and involuntary sounds.

The condition is often misunderstood. Involuntary swearing, known as coprolalia, is widely associated with Tourette syndrome in popular culture, but it affects only a minority of people with the condition.

What the trials found

Doctors diagnose Tourette syndrome when a person has had several motor tics and at least one vocal tic for a year or more, with symptoms beginning before the age of 18. Its exact cause is still not fully understood, but research points to a combination of genetic and environmental factors, along with differences in the brain circuits that regulate movement. Disruption to dopamine, a chemical messenger in the brain, is also believed to play a part.

There is no cure, but treatments such as Comprehensive Behavioural Intervention for Tics, known as CBIT, and medication can help people manage their symptoms.

The Nottingham research, led by Professor Stephen Jackson, was tested in a clinical trial in the United Kingdom involving 121 people in 2023. Participants using a prototype of the device saw their tic frequency fall by an average of 25 percent while the device was in use, and after four weeks their tic severity had fallen by more than 35 percent. Singer Lewis Capaldi, who lives with Tourette syndrome, has also tried the device.

A consumer wellness version of the device, Neupulse-C, has been launched by the university spin-out company Neurotherapeutics, while a medical version intended for treating tics is still going through the regulatory approval process. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has asked for more evidence about its long-term benefits before it can be recommended for wider use through the health service, so for now access remains limited. Even so, researchers and families say the early results offer genuine hope that a simple wrist device could make daily life easier for many people with Tourette syndrome.