Seedlabs

LeftSide Trainer: Task-Specific Neglect Rehab Modules

A tablet app that helps stroke patients practice specific daily tasks they struggle with due to vision loss.

A clinician-prescribed tablet app that trains stroke patients with left-side neglect on the actual daily tasks they fail — reading, searching a table, dressing checks — because rehab gains turn out to be task-specific.

NeuroscienceSpatial Neglect and Hemispheric Dysfunction
Cognitive-Adaptive Visual AnalyticsPost-stroke occupational therapy / visual rehabilitation

Concept

After a right-hemisphere stroke, patients with left hemispatial neglect bump into doorframes, miss food on the left of the plate, and skip the left half of text — and generic scanning drills don't fix daily life, because training gains are task-specific. LeftSide Trainer is a library of neglect-relevant daily tasks rendered on a tablet: line-by-line reading with left-margin anchoring, left-to-right item search over simulated tabletops, and left-side check routines for dressing and grooming. Each module has a difficulty ladder, and progress is scored with standardized cancellation and line-bisection metrics so the occupational therapist sees transfer — or its absence — objectively. In the early weeks, cues start on the intact right side and draw attention leftward, matching the demonstrated early orienting pattern. The OT prescribes two or three modules matched to the tasks the patient actually fails at home.

Why now

This is the strongest-evidence area in the new volume: it contains two randomized controlled trials of rehabilitation for hemi-inattention and attentional disorders, an empirical demonstration of neglect rehabilitation, a chapter showing training effects are task-specific (gains do not generalize across tasks), and a chapter on early ipsilateral orienting of attention in neglect patients. That convergence both validates attention training as effective and dictates the product's defining design choice — task-specific modules instead of one generic drill. Because RCT evidence exists, this is comparatively deployment-ready among the volume's topics, but the launch scope should be the trained task types, with no claims of generalization beyond them.

Written by GLM · 11 Oct 2026

AI assessment

Backed by 1 paper92

A highly evidence-backed, focused digital therapeutic that leverages the principle of task-specificity to improve functional outcomes for stroke patients with hemispatial neglect.

Evidence strength
5/5
The idea is directly derived from a convergence of multiple sources, including RCTs and specific findings on task-specificity and early orienting patterns.
Market pull
4/5
Occupational therapists and stroke rehab centers have a clear need for objective tracking and targeted tools, though adoption depends on clinical integration.
Novelty & moat
4/5
While other rehab apps exist, the specific application of task-specificity to neglect—rather than generic scanning—creates a distinct clinical edge over existing catalog ideas.
Feasibility
5/5
The product is a tablet-based interface with standard interaction patterns, making it highly feasible for a small team to build a prototype quickly.
Wedge clarity
5/5
The wedge is sharp: a clinician-prescribed set of specific modules (reading, searching, dressing) rather than a general wellness app.
Simplicity / focus
5/5
The scope is tightly constrained to a library of task-specific modules with a clear scoring mechanism, avoiding 'platform' bloat.

Scored by Gemma 4 · 11 Oct 2026. Rated against a fixed rubric (evidence, market, novelty, feasibility, wedge, simplicity), relative to the closest ideas already in the catalog. A prior estimate to compare ideas before real-world signal arrives.

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Who benefits

  • NeuronUpcompany

    Its web platform is used by occupational therapists to deliver cognitive rehabilitation exercises; a validated, task-specific neglect module set fills a conspicuous gap in its library for right-hemisphere stroke patients.

  • Kessler Foundationorganization

    It funds stroke and brain-injury rehabilitation research, including attention disorders; the app's standardized cancellation and line-bisection progress metrics give its researchers a ready outcome instrument for neglect trials.

  • HappyNeuroncompany

    Its professional cognitive-stimulation software serves rehab clinics; adding neglect-specific daily-task modules would let it serve the post-stroke occupational-therapy market more completely.

  • American Stroke Associationorganization

    It publishes post-stroke recovery guidance for patients and caregivers; a clinician-prescribed task trainer for neglect gives it a concrete tool to point families toward for this common, disabling deficit.

Research it builds on

  1. Cognitive Neuropsychology and Cognitive Rehabilitation
    M. Jane Riddoch, Glyn W. Humphreys · 2026 · 131 citations
    All ideas from this paper →
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