Neater Solutions Limited is a small company based in Buxton,
Derbyshire, United Kingdom that designs, manufactures and distributes
specialist equipment for people with disabilities.
Neater Solutions is
best known for its system of eating aids called the Neater Eater. This is a
modular system with different choices to suit people with different abilities.
One choice is an electric powered programmable version. Other products include:
Neater Drinkers, a powered mobile arm support called the Neater Arm Support and
the Neater Uni-Chair which is a one-arm drive wheelchair for people with
hemiplegia incorporating single foot steering and a differential
drive.
In the UK, individual equipment assessments are offered to ensure
people have the best choice of equipment and set up to suit them.
Jon Michaelis invented his viscous damped eating aid for people with
tremor when he was a final year engineering student at Imperial College in
1986. Partly because of this project, he was awarded the Governors' prize (most
outstanding student in final year). The project was supported by Action
Research, Chailey Heritage and the Royal Hospital for Neurology and
Neurosurgery. Jon Michaelis then founded Michaelis Engineering in order to
manufacture the first Neater Eaters in workshops run by the London Innovation
Networks of the Greater London Enterprise Board. (The workshops were the
brainchild of Mike Cooley who's talk at Imperial College in 1983 had inspired
Jon Michaelis to direct his engineering interests in the direction of socially
useful products and to set up the Imperial College Student Appropriate
Technology Society).
Michaelis Engineering moved to share workshops
with the Rehabilitation Engineer at Southampton General Hospital in 1988. Jon
Michaelis was invited by consultants there to write a chapter: "Mechanical
methods of controlling ataxia" published in Bailliere's Clinical Neurology
Vol.2,No.1, April 1993.
Michaelis Engineering became a limited company
in 1992 and relocated to Buxton, Derbyshire. Ruth Mallard joined the company in
1994 as Office Manager. In 1998 Neater Solutions Limited was formed to carry on
this work still with Jon Michaelis as Managing Director and Ruth Mallard as
Operations Manager.
Development of the Neater Eater system continued
during this time with different mechanisms and other options to suit people
with different needs and abilities. In 1999 an electrically powered option was
developed which was awarded status as a Millennium Product by the Design
Council.
In 2001 the website www.neater.co.uk was launched.
In 2003
Neater Solutions approached Cambridge University to redesign and manufacture a
prototype powered mobile arm support that had been developed in its engineering
department - The Neater Arm Support. This is now considered an essential piece
of equipment by many therapists working with people with muscular
dystrophy.
In 2007 John Foster joined as a full time Neater Consultant.
Amongst other things, he carries out individual equipment assessments in
northern England and trains overseas distributors.
In 2007 Neater
Solutions worked with Samuel Lesley and a team from the University of Brighton
led by Dr Anne Mandy to develop a wheelchair for people with hemiplegia. The
development was supported by a Health Technology Development Grant from the
department of health. The resulting Neater Uni-Chair uses a unique toothed belt
differential mechanism and foot steering. It was awarded a 10 out of 10 score
from the HTD committee. The Neater Uni-Chair was launched in Düsseldorf in
October 2009 at the Rehacare exhibition.
Nearly every user of Neater
Solutions' major products has had an individual assessment or trial of the
equipment prior to it being supplied - usually involving an occupational
therapist, physiotherapist or speech and language therapist. This has been the
driving force behind the continuing product development - ensuring equipment is
made that properly meets the real needs of people with a wide range of
abilities.
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