Two sons made an app to track their mom’s epilepsy seizures. Now it works worldwide

(From left to right) Eric Dolan, co-founder and CEO of Neutun Labs with his lead developer Ved Petkar. They display the app on their smartwatches which can detect epileptic seizures.

It was 2002. The mother of Eric and Alexander Dolan was suffering from a very bad season of multiple epileptic seizures a day. She had also developed a bone disease, making her condition even worse.

“I remember a day she was driving on the freeway with me and started to have a seizure. She pulled the car aside. It had become dangerous for her,” says Eric.

Born in November last year, Neutun is a wearable application that tracks and alerts people whenever a loved one is having an epileptic seizure.

The application is ported inside wearables such as a Pebble smartwatch. It is also available as a mobile application on iOS and Android. While the smartwatch app is priced at US$9 a month, the mobile apps are free to download.

A demo of the Neutun Labs app displaying the GPS location on map where the patient had a seizure.

Now Eric gets to know whenever his mom is having a seizure. She wears the watch given by her sons all the time. “Our app runs in the background and tracks whenever you have a seizure. We then automatically notify your loved ones. The event is stored as a journal on the app,” says Eric.

He pressed the button. Within 30 seconds, at least five people called or texted to check if he was okay.

“We are also trying to integrate a taxi app so that we can get the person home or to a doctor,” he adds.

An unlimited number of people can be notified through an SMS as soon as their loved one is having a seizure. They can then call the person from inside the app or track the duration of the seizure. Neutun has also built in medication reminders. It can also track the GPS location of the event.

“Recently I was in a mentoring session and pressed a demo button – within 30 seconds, at least five people called or texted me to check if I was okay,” says Eric.

Can I fake a seizure by shaking the phone hard? “No. It won’t detect it,” he adds.

The Toronto-based company has received seed investments from incubators such as DreamIT Health and 500 Startups.