At 46 years old, Jimmy Choi has completed more than 100 half-marathons, more than a dozen full marathons, an ultra-marathon, Spartan Races, and countless other runs. In 2017, he competed in American Ninja Warrior on NBC, bringing his sheer athleticism to a wider audience.
And at 46 years old, Jimmy Choi has been living with Parkinson's disease for 19 years.
Now he raises money for Parkinson's research while spreading awareness of the full effects of the disease and the day-to-day struggles of those living with it.
In late-2020, he shared a video on TikTok sharing one of his biggest pet peeves: the difficulty of taking tiny pills with a tremor.
Fellow TikTok user Brian Alldridge saw the video and had an idea for a different kind of pill bottle that could help Parkinson's patients.
The bottle uses an easy-to-grip twisting bottom that allows the user to isolate one pill in the lid, and then simply pop the pill into their mouths by tipping the bottle.
Offers to print came flooding in, and engineer David Exler ended up connecting with Choi to test the bottle and improve on the design.
He's currently working with a patent lawyer to ensure that his design remains free for others to tinker with. In the near future, he hopes to meet with manufacturers to mass-produce the bottles, with all proceeds going towards non-profit organizations.
h/t: CBC News
