A wrist-worn device developed at the University of Nottingham helped calm 15-year-old Katie's Tourette's tics "in an instant," she told BBC News, in an account the university and a UK charity say is being repeated by other users. The device is not yet approved as an NHS treatment.
Katie, from Hertfordshire, said her symptoms began at age 7 and became so relentless they left her bedridden with a sore throat for two weeks, disrupted sleep and eating, and caused her to miss school. "I used to make snorting sounds, but it was constant all the time," she said. "I think I became quite sad a lot of the time." Her mother, Julia, called watching her struggle "heartbreaking." After reading about the Nottingham device, they traveled there in December to try it before it was available to buy. Katie was among the first to use Neupulse. When she turned it on, she said, she became "really calm." "It was absolutely life-changing. It was like the best day of my life," she said. On the drive home, she cried because she wanted one immediately.
The device delivers electrical pulses to the median nerve at the wrist, which trials have shown can change activity in parts of the brain involved in movement control, the BBC reported. Ollie, 15, from Cheshire, started involuntary neck movements nearly two years ago that quickly became constant. His father, Alex, said sleeping, eating and drinking became "incredibly difficult." Both families described the device as a turning point. Those are personal accounts, not a substitute for a completed regulatory review.
Sold, but not yet an approved NHS treatment
According to Tourettes Action, more than 300,000 people in the UK have the incurable condition. The university said "thousands" of the devices have been sold so far. A related model, Neupulse-M, is still going through the regulatory approval process; if approval is obtained, the charity hopes it will be considered for NHS use. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has called the technology "promising" but asked for more evidence of long-term benefits before recommending NHS adoption. In 2025, NICE said its committee would meet again to appraise clinical and cost effectiveness and publish new guidance.
Prof. Stephen Jackson, who has led the research, called seeing the impact "a dream come true" and said he hoped the device would be available on the NHS "in the next year or so." "We are working diligently and as hard as we can to get regulatory approval for the Neupulse device as a treatment for Tourette's," he said. "It's been provisionally evaluated by [NICE], but they were unable to recommend it for use in the NHS until we have the regulatory approval." He told the BBC that users have described getting through wedding vows or airport travel without ticking. Until regulators finish their review, the device should not be described as an approved medical treatment in the UK, even if some families are already buying and using it.