Healing helmets go global

•  Mervyn and Janice Chilcott of Scottsdale have made over 1100 infrared helmets to help patients with Parkinson’s disease around the world. 

By Taylor Clyne,
May 11, 2022

It’s been three years since the Advertiser broke the story on a two-dollar bucket lined with infrared lights that was making waves for patients with Parkinson’s disease, so what’s happened with this local phenomenon since then?

It was Scottsdale’s Max Burr who first became the guinea pig in an experiment of a lifetime when Lilydale’s Dr Catherine Hamilton made an infrared light bucket after having researched and trialled a different device on her knee back in 2016. 

At the time they were working with input from Sydney University Professor John Mitrofanis and Pyengana born geriatrician Dr Frank Nicklason but it was apparent research was at least ten years off human trials.

Mr Burr said he didn’t have that kind of time to wait and that he was going to try the light therapy bucket anyway. 

Hoping not to fry his brain, instead the exact opposite happened, seeing improvements in his gait, balance, hand grip, sleep and regaining a sense of smell from using the lights in small sessions twice a day.

Research showed that using the lights at a specific wave length could increase cell activity and improve quality of life and when you’re diagnosed with an incurable disease, any amount of hope you’re willing to try. 

The prototype was then picked up by the Scottsdale Men’s Shed who began making their own helmets to help with the demand. 

At the time the Men’s Shed Coordinator was Mervyn Chilcott who couldn’t believe his eyes at how many orders were rolling in.

“There was a story in the Advertiser and the Weekend Australian all in the same week, I remember I was at bowls, and I couldn’t even play my phone was ringing that much,” he said.

“We had seven or eight fellas lined the length of the shed making helmets for people every day.”

But after a few months the members of the shed were keen to get back into doing woodwork and so Mervyn and his wife Janice decided to take the project home and do it themselves.

“At one stage it was just Janice and myself coming and spending all day at the shed, I think our biggest day was 34 hats in one day because we got about 13 weeks behind in orders – the demand was that strong.”

When the pair took the enterprise home they assumed the demand was not far from fizzling out, having already filled 500 orders from around the world.

“It just hasn’t, we’ve never advertised or anything and we are still making between three and seven helmets a week and have sold more than 1100 helmets now.

“Every time there is a story run in a paper about infrared lights or posted online we are flooded with orders again, I don’t even know how they have the contacts. 

“We’ve supplied to 26 countries around the world including smaller countries like Portugal, Taiwan, Lithuania and Malaysia who you wouldn’t expect would be in contact with little old Tassie,” Mr Chilcott said. 

The highest demand overseas comes from America followed by England, the United Kingdom, France and New Zealand. 

Mr Chilcott said over the years he and Janice had experimented with the design to make the process more efficient, effective and user friendly.

“The switching was quite complicated at the beginning you’d almost need a university degree to get the wires in place.

“We’ve now simplified the whole thing and it takes about four hours to make one from start to finish.

“It’s now a rotary design and will penetrate 70 per cent of the brain with lights and is a little more stylish than the original bucket.”

The pair still rely on the Reject Shop for materials and were a little stuck during Covid on obtaining supplies but have always retained the price tag of $300 per helmet.

“There are so many forms of red light things that have come out which are industrially made with big pharmaceuticals and therefore quite expensive, upwards of thousands.

“We keep ours at the same price all the time and that’s where we feel we can make a bit of money and serve the community as well.

“At the end of the day it’s still experimental and for $300 if it works its lifechanging and if it doesn’t then it’s not too much money.

“I played bowls against a chap and his hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t play and had to hold them to stop them from shaking.

“I asked if he had Parkinson’s and explained what we were doing.

“His wife came to me to make a helmet. We played against him on another round, and he said he had never slept so well in all his life and his hands had stopped shaking, he was bowling again. 

“That’s when I knew we were doing a great thing.”

The pair laughed saying they can almost make the helmets in their sleep now and have also expanded with Jan’s sewing skills to make red light pads for treatment of other areas.

“The pad uses the same lights as the helmet but can relieve things like arthritis, pain or wounds,” Mr Chilcot explained.

“There is a lot of research on it that we can supply to people but basically the lights have healing properties that repair nerve endings, it’s really a heavy dose of sunlight which also increases your dopamine.”

The couple say they have had many people come back and tell them, both with Parkinson’s and the light pad, that they’ve been able to reduce their drug intake and regain quality of life.

“We can get an order in the mail within a week and just hope that it can make a difference.”

From the catalyst of Max Burr and the Hamiltons to the Chilcotts in their sewing room helping people around the world, it wouldn’t be untoward to say that the North-East may just be the red light capital for years to come. 

• The evolution of the red light helmet design over the past three years, pictured front the first bucket hat.