Cystic fibrosis is a life-long and life-shortening disease, where heavy mucus builds up in the lungs. Every day, kids with CF have to wear bulky vests that beat their chests. It is the worst part of their day.

Can we turn the worst part of their day into an exhilarating experience?

SICK BEATS by Woojer—the world’s first music-powered airway clearance CF vest—uses the clinically-proven modality of soundwave therapy to merge music kids love with the daily treatment they need, all on Spotify.

According to pulmonologists, SICK BEATS is an innovation that could disrupt the entire CF vest market.

Clinical research has demonstrated that applying soundwaves to the chest is as effective as mechanical agitation. This discovery, coupled with the insight that nobody likes to be hit or shaken, especially if they are small like a child with CF, led us to investigate whether the haptic technology inside the ultralightweight consumer vest from Woojer could be retooled to deliver therapeutic soundwaves to the chests of CF patients in a music-driven experience.

In the US, a medical device must be studied in a multicenter trial and submitted to the FDA for review and approval before it can be available for sale. Therefore, SICK BEATS is not yet widely available, but is accessible to the 2000+ CF families within the Claire’s Place Foundation network and has initiated the clinical trial process.

It’s been clinically proven that 40Hz soundwaves are as effective as traditional vests in loosening and expelling mucus (see also Supporting Information). Our goal was to apply this proven science to an experience that kids would not only endure but enjoy.

Working with Woojer, we redesigned their consumer haptic vest to meet the needs of CF treatment—adding additional transducers, optimizing lung placement, and boosting the 40Hz output. We used an AI-enabled sniffer to search 30 million songs in the Spotify library for therapeutic frequencies, identifying thousands of 40Hz songs for use with the SICK BEATS vest.

Phase 1: Idea creation and fact finding

• November 2018, we began developing the haptic vest idea within the agency and seeking out partners in development

• We researched current airway clearance vest technologies and consumer haptic vest technologies

• We began conducting preliminary searches in the CF community for advocacy groups interested in the project

Phase 2: Company A

• June 2019, we entered into a partnership with Company A and made significant progress together in the development of the clinical prototype

• July 2019, first clinical prototype tested in Medical Director’s CF clinic

• September 2019, our engineering and development team began building out prototypes for clinical trial

• November 2019, Claire’s Place Foundation partnered with the team to provide community insight as well as CF family engagement and support

• February 2020, scheduled clinical trial cancelled due to COVID-19 pandemic

• March 2020, Company A exited partnership to pivot business to COVID-19 contact tracing

Phase 3: Woojer

• September 2020, Woojer joined the team as a development partner

• November 2020, Claire’s Place unveiled the SICK BEATS project within its 2000+ CF family network to start experience trial enrollment

• December 14, 2020, first experience trial participant enrolled; data collection began

Phase 4: Publicity to attract clinical investigators, investors, and family participants

• March 30, 2021, SickBeatsVest.com launched to aid in attracting clinical investigators, investors, and family participants

• Ongoing, Claire’s Place Foundation continues to disseminate information about the SICK BEATS project throughout its network

SICK BEATS syncs with your smartphone and translates the frequencies of the music you’re listening to into powerful soundwaves that penetrate the body to loosen lung mucus so the patient can cough it up.

We began by placing 8 patented oscillating transducers to target 8 key lung zones, ensuring delivery of the 40Hz tone for maximal therapeutic effect. Next, we curated a Spotify library of therapeutic songs that could be enjoyed by anyone.

Identifying 40Hz songs was no easy task—involving a challenging calculation called pitch detection, where we actually predict the shape of soundwaves in each song. We applied a combination of algorithmic solutions, YIN and AMDF, and an AI-based solution—a Recurrent Neural Network—to predict song frequencies. We downloaded every song on Spotify that met our requirements of popular music, clean lyrics, and length of track, and allowed the AI-enabled sniffer to listen to songs, picking out ones that fell within the therapeutic range. Those songs were then used to build Spotify playlists.

We also updated the vest firmware to preferentially deliver the 40Hz tone for a broader range of input frequencies without distorting the audio quality of the song, enhancing the therapeutic effect of the vest.

According to a leading pediatric pulmonologist, “This is game changing. Music-powered soundwave-driven airway clearance has the potential to replace the standard of care in CF airway clearance. We know that the soundwaves work, but SICK BEATS makes treatment fun, and anything that encourages more treatment will most definitely improve outcomes.”

2,000+ CF families within the Claire’s Place Foundation network have access to the vest—on a rolling basis, free of charge. To date, 20 kids with CF have joined our experience trial of the prototype vest. The product is now in clinical testing to prove efficacy and begin the path to FDA approval. The vest is intended to have long-term impact—replacing traditional airway clearance therapy. After FDA approval, the vest will be available at a much lower cost ($400 compared to over $10,000), creating more accessibility for the CF community.