Sick Beats turns cystic-fibrosis airway therapy into a bass-filled music session

Cystic fibrosis makes thick mucus build up in the lungs, so children depend on daily airway-clearance therapy. The standard vest does the job by mechanically pounding the chest for about 20 minutes at a time — bulky, medical-looking, priced above $10,000, and, in the words of the kids who wore it, the worst part of the day.

The work started inside health agency Area 23's 'What If' program, which gives employees room to develop ambitious ideas for clients who never asked. An early concept simply synced the existing vest's percussion to a child's playlist; the team rejected it as making a bad experience slightly less bad. Research pointed to sound instead: vibrations at 40Hz had already been shown to help break up mucus, and consumer haptics could deliver them.

Area 23 took the idea to Woojer, a haptic-wearable company, which signed on immediately and produced a minimum viable product within a month. The consumer vest was rebuilt for a child's frame with eight transducers placed around the chest cavity and a doubled power supply. Because few songs contain a clean 40Hz tone, the team built algorithms that listened to Spotify's catalog and curated playlists of tracks in the therapeutic range.

Families connected through the Claire's Place Foundation tested the vests at home during the pandemic, documenting their sessions on camera. Children were told to keep using their medical vests because the prototype still faced clinical trials — and kept asking for SICK BEATS instead. In June 2021 the work took the Grands Prix in both the Pharma and Radio & Audio Lions at Cannes, plus gold and bronze awards.