Speaker 1 00:00
The following episode of Able Quest contains adult themes and is not suitable for children. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 00:11
With information on the latest developments in assistive technology and initiatives, from the studios of two RPH in Sydney, RPH Australia brings you AbleQuest. Hello, I'm Manny Roper. Sexual wellbeing is an important part of health and happiness, including for those with a disability.
Speaker 2 00:39
Having a physical or cognitive disability does not change your sexuality or your wish to express it. Indeed, the World Health Organization defines sexual health as a need, and everyone deserves to experience pleasure.
Speaker 2 00:54
Yet there are many misconceptions about this topic. As soon as you become disabled, your sex life disappears. People may think you don't want it or even like it. Today's guest, Robert Duff Sillsbury, is the co -founder and project manager of Luddy, a Perth -based company which is revolutionising assistive devices for all people and bodies.
Speaker 2 01:18
Founded in 2021 during COVID, after a chat over a coffee machine with physiotherapists about the lack of options and accessibility for people with a disability, has led to a sexual wellness product called Ziggy.
Speaker 2 01:34
It is now available through the NDIS. Elaine Jean -Tek spoke to Rob from his office in Perth. Thank you.
Speaker 1 01:42
Welcome to AbleQuest, Rob. So today we're going to talk about sexual wellness and disability. That's two taboo topics right there in polite conversation. So what spurred you to action with this being a co -founder and project manager of LUDDI?
Speaker 3 02:00
I think we were having conversations in the office around a lot of participants meet. This is one topic that really resonated with everyone in the office. We decided it's about time someone actually addressed this and took this head on.
Speaker 3 02:15
It's been a really exciting journey and I'm happy to share it with the world.
Speaker 1 02:20
So how big is this problem do you think?
Speaker 3 02:23
If you speak to any therapist out there, nine out of ten, especially working with adults, would probably say that they experience this with a variety of their participants. And then whenever we speak to the community, it's always a top secret that people are still really passionate about.
Speaker 3 02:40
And we've had people break down in tears in front of us just by the fact that suddenly there's people out there in the public, in public spaces talking about this sort of thing. So it's hidden away and a lot of people probably don't think this is something worth talking about.
Speaker 3 02:56
But when you speak to most people, it's something that comes up often.
Speaker 1 03:01
So you work with physiotherapist in a company called Inpirt, called Ascend Health. Can you just briefly tell us what that company does and how you came to be talking about this in the office?
Speaker 3 03:12
Yeah, Ascend Health is a disability service provider based out of Perth. We have over 80 support workers and there's a small team of therapists including physios, speech therapists and OTs. And that's what gives us a bit of an advantage at Ladi is that we share the office with this healthcare team that really gives us some good insight into participants' needs.
Speaker 3 03:35
But also quite critical whenever we develop a product or have an idea, have they obviously have real world experience and it's just a fun work environment to be able to test ideas and get people's feedback.
Speaker 1 03:49
So you're part of an assistive tech division within this company, is that right?
Speaker 3 03:53
We sort of spin off, I would say. Ascend Health was an early investor in Lodi. So there's three co -founders. Ascend Health was one of the investors and they've enabled us to tap into that therapy side of things, that knowledge of the industry.
Speaker 3 04:09
And that really gives us some good feedback. But we're generally a business to the side of them, but they give us a lot of guidance.
Speaker 1 04:17
What is the origin of LUDDI? Is it just a cool name?
Speaker 3 04:22
No, actually, we changed our name about 12 months ago, and that was to allow us to pay tribute to a really great doctor that he was a Jewish doctor hunted by the Nazis. He did a lot of great work with veterans that had acquired some sort of physical disability during the war.
Speaker 3 04:42
He was actually the founder of both the Invictus Games and the Paralympic Games. His name was Ludwig Goodman, so Luddy is our little tribute to Mr Ludwig.
Speaker 1 04:52
That's great. That's a terrific story. So sexual health is an important part of well -being and health. And I guess everybody with a disability is entitled to a sex life. As soon as you become disabled, your sex life doesn't disappear.
Speaker 3 05:08
Yeah, the who categorizes it as a basic need, a human right. So as you said, it doesn't appear with disability. A lot of the time it can actually become more of an issue, more of a topic because suddenly you're, if you require the disability, suddenly you're no longer able to participate in an activity that you yourself felt really quite passionate about, but also as a tool to express your intimacy with a partner.
Speaker 3 05:38
It will suddenly get amplified, that need when you can no longer express yourself in that way. So from that perspective, it becomes a bigger topic for a lot of people.
Speaker 1 05:50
So you can't express yourself because of mobility issues or is it you're embarrassed by certain? Yeah.
Speaker 3 05:56
Yeah, it's one of the first participants that really awakened us to this concept was someone that had a spinal cord injury, suddenly was no longer able to express themselves sexually. So that sense of relief, that sense of intimacy was taken away from them.
Speaker 3 06:13
That was what really drove our passion to start with and think, okay, maybe we addressed this topic, but as we started to look into assistive technology and the tools out there for sexual wellness, we actually, we saw this problem that exists across almost every product category and that's around developing high quality products that not only look and feel good, but that people would actually really desire to want.
Speaker 3 06:38
So it's expanded from that, but we definitely started with that need that one particular person had in it.
Speaker 1 06:46
So can you tell us a little bit about the process? You see the problem, so what happens then? Who do you talk to? How do you design something like this?
Speaker 3 06:54
It's quite an interesting journey to go through. We took our product from idea through to manufacturing 12 months, which is really quite quick for a first product for a company.
Speaker 1 07:07
Amazingly quick.
Speaker 3 07:09
We knew the need was there. We had a lot of early validation, but generally it started once we decided to do this. We just started drawing on the whiteboard. That progressed into playing with Play -Doh in different shapes.
Speaker 3 07:23
Then that turned into 3D design. We then got some 3D prints. The 3D prints were really handy because we could actually take those out to X -Bos and get user feedback on the shape and the size. From there, we then went into some prototyping with the manufacturer.
Speaker 3 07:41
It was 3 prototypes all up. Then the fourth one was the actual final product. It was a fun process of playing with all these different mediums.
Speaker 1 07:52
So do you have a name for this product and is it just one product?
Speaker 3 07:56
At the moment, the Ziggy is our first product. That's what we're showing people at the moment. We've got a couple of other designs that we're really excited to start manufacturing soon. But the Ziggy is certainly captured, not only in the assistive technology market, but we're actually seeing a lot of traction in the mainstream market as well, which is part of our mantra, is that we think assistive technology is a category, shouldn't really exist.
Speaker 3 08:24
And we would like to see lots of products being designed that are adaptive and accessible, but that the mainstream market would actually be really comfortable using as well.
Speaker 1 08:35
So what does it do that some other products can't do?
Speaker 3 08:38
Well the Ziggy, it's very versatile. There's lots of different ways that you can use it, and it's quite multi -gendered as well. So one of the things we're really proud of is that you don't have to be male, female, you don't have to have a vulva, penis, it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 3 08:53
These are all things that, there's lots of different ways that you can use the Ziggy, which makes it really adaptable, but there's also some really clever accessibility to our features in it as well.
Speaker 3 09:03
It's easy to pick up, easy to turn on and off. There's Braille, high contrast colors, the box is easy to access, there's easy read instructions, but it just, it looks cool.
Speaker 1 09:17
It looks cool. So how expensive is this and is it available on the NDIS?
Speaker 3 09:24
Yep, it's accessible through the NDIS. Actually, you can use assistive technology budget to fund sexual wellness products. This is, as I said before, we're trying to compete in the mainstream market.
Speaker 3 09:36
So we price the Ziggy at a level that anyone would be able to purchase it. So it's just under $300. But through our website, you can get an invoice, claim it through your usual process of low cost AT.
Speaker 1 09:51
So NDIS covers this. NDIS does recognize that sexual wellness is an issue when they're prepared to fund it.
Speaker 3 09:59
Yeah, it's one of the most progressive things I think about the NDIS. Although it's not really, I say that with a pinch of salt because when the reporting comes around people's improvements using the NDIS, we talk about physical improvement, mental health improvement, but when it comes to sexual health, it's very much in the negative term, it's around sexual abuse.
Speaker 3 10:19
We would like that to be flipped around and for it to be more publicly spoken about the support that the NDIS gives towards sexual wellness, but all sex toys can be claimed using NDIS funding, even sex workers as well, but that requires a bit more input from OTs, etc.
Speaker 3 10:37
Because that's a bit higher cost.
Speaker 1 10:39
So do you see the Ziggy mainly used by disabled people? Or does it do me to talk about it with OTs and physios? And so they have one in the office and they can show people.
Speaker 3 10:51
Yeah, we work really closely with therapists because we do see the need for them to be able to recommend products. A lot of people don't feel comfortable having conversations. So giving therapists the ability to talk about sexual health is really important for us.
Speaker 3 11:06
So we do a lot of training with therapists. And we also encourage people to actually have conversations with their team, whether it's with support workers, other therapists, even with their family. Being able to be open about this sort of topic, we think is one of the things that going forward would really improve a lot of outcomes for people.
Speaker 3 11:26
But we also have this need to be bright and bold and encourage people to be proud of their sexual honour. So people will ask us, why is the Ziggy so bright? Is it bright orange? It's because we don't think you should be ashamed of having products like this.
Speaker 3 11:41
This is part of your health.
Speaker 1 11:43
Do you need to plug it in or is it wireless?
Speaker 3 11:47
That's one of the cool features, the base station that the Ziggy sits on is a battery box. So we've designed that to be hidden away so you can use the Ziggy when you want to charge it, you just lay it on the charging station and you can put that in your drawer.
Speaker 3 12:02
The charging station holds charge for about three months, so you will need to plug that in every now and then, but it's just a magnetic charger, so it snaps on, really quite easy to use. So it allows a lot of people to get the help to charge it if they need to because this charging station doesn't look like a toy, but it allows you to access the port if you need to charge it whilst being discreet.
Speaker 1 12:28
That sounds great. So where can we learn more? Can you tell us the website?
Speaker 3 12:33
Yeah, our website is LUDDI .co, but we're also in a lot of mainstream sexual wellness product stores. There's also a couple of really progressive mobility stores out there as well, like the Brainerie, PushMobility, the Mobility Store and Perf.
Speaker 3 12:51
So if you require registered NDIS provider to purchase this, get in touch because we have some good stockers. So either through our website, through mainstream retail outlets or some mobility stores.
Speaker 1 13:03
Thank you very much Rob, great talking to you.
Speaker 3 13:06
Thank you.
Speaker 1 13:08
and that was Rob Duff Sillsbury, who's the co -founder and project manager of LUDDI. And they're the people who help revolutionise assistive devices for all people and bodies. And he was talking about a new product called Ziggy.
Speaker 1 13:23
And if you'd like to hear this program again, this interview is available as a podcast on the 2RPH website under AbleQuest.
Speaker 2 13:42
You have just been listening to AbleQuest, a program that looks at developments in assistive technology. Thank you for listening and goodbye to our next program.
