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Hi Alisa, I was wondering how I can get some more
communication boards. I received a packet some time ago which contained a
variety of boards but the patients seemed to always chose the one which
mimmicks
the Dynavox layout (I believe). I would just like to re-order
those. Ron
Hankins
Speech
Language Pathologist Neuroscience
Clinics (602)
839-4150 xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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[mailto:xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Alisa Brownlee I
found
the following story on the NPR Communication Technology For Disabled Is Nothing To Sniff At -
July
26, 2010 There’s a
new way for severely disabled people to communicate with the outside world
—
sniffing. That’s right. Sniffing. Israeli
scientists have created a nose-powered device that severely paralyzed can
use
to control a computer. A small tube carries the breath of a person to a
tiny
sensor that detects changes in pressure. A computer translates the puffs
into
letters, allowing the person to type. "I
have a locked-in patient who sends me e-mails," says Noam Sobel, a
neuroscientist at Weizmann Institute in People
with locked-in syndrome are almost completely paralyzed, but mentally
normal.
Three of the 15 disabled people included in the study by Sobel and his
colleagues were locked-in. Typically, those patients rely on caretakers to
interpret eye blinks for communication. That's a slow and laborious way to
have
a conversation. Sobel
says the sniffing device lets these patients "generate really
meaningful
self-initiated _expression_." The work is described in the latest
edition of
the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences. An
advantage of the sniff device, says Sobel, is it cannot only detect when a
person starts or stops sniffing, but also sense how long the sniff lasts
and
how strong it is. All that information, Sobel says, makes it easier to
create
programs for performing complex tasks, like surfing the
Web. The
device can also be used on people who have a breathing tube. As long as
people
can move their soft palate, the muscle that lets us switch between
breathing
with our nose or our mouth, the sniff device can pick up the pressure
changes
in the nose. Still,
the device isn't for everyone. "I have several patients who refuse to
use
technology because they want that human to human interaction," says
Lisa
Bruning, a speech therapist who works with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
patients. ALS,
or
Lou Gehrig’s disease, saps people of control over their muscles.
Virtually
everyone who suffers from ALS will eventually become locked-in. But
because the disease starts in different parts of the body in different
people,
some may lose control over their speech muscles first, including the soft
palate. That wouldn’t be able to use the new
device. Communicating
through a caretaker doesn’t prevent locked-in patients from living
meaningful
lives. One man dictated a book using eye blinks. But, says neuroscientist
John
Donghue, "Those methods are painfully
slow." Donoghue
is a principal investigator for the BrainGate project. He and his team have
created implants that read a disabled person’s brainwaves and give
them the
ability to control a computer, a prosthetic limb, even a wheelchair. But
these
implants are still early in development. In
the
meantime, he agrees that the sniff device could help. He says,
"Anything
that adds to the armamentarium of things that we have to help these people
communicate is a good thing." What
Sobel likes about his sniff device is that it's simple, low-tech and cheap
to
produce. He said the prototypes cost around $300. Plus, the sniff device
can be
used to drive a wheelchair too. Two breaths in move you forward. Two
breaths out,
move you backward. Whether
the sniff device will catch on depends on a disabled person’s
preferences. Most
likely the device will be used in combination with other systems. After
all,
there’s one thing that will shut down the sniff device real fast
— a cold.
[Copyright 2010 National Public Radio] To
learn
more about the NPR iPhone app, go to http://iphone.npr.org/recommendnprnews
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