Son Designed Watch To Stop Dad’s Nightmares

Patrick Skluzacek went to Iraq and when he came back in 2007, he struggled to manage his nightmares that came with the PTSD. Patrick is not alone. Many who suffer from PTSD (soldier or not) can have accompanying dreams that leave them in fear of sleeping.

Tyler, Patrick’s son, remembers how different his fun loving dad was upon returning. Patrick took to alcohol and pills to cope and ended up losing his marriage, job, and life as he knew it. Years later, Tyler is at college in Minnesota and heard of a hackathon in Washington D.C. with the main goal of providing ways to support those with PTSD.

Tyler flew to D.C. and gathered a team that wanted to use smart watches to vibrate the wearer as a nightmare would begin – much like a comfort animal would nudge or lay across their owner in times of distress.

His dad agreed to be the lab rat and they got to work monitoring heart rates and movements and bio data that connected to nightmares. It took months to get the vibrations strong enough to stop the dreams, but not too strong to wake Patrick – but they did it.

The FDA approved the app in November 2020 and it will soon be available as prescribed by doctors through the VA.