Medgadget

New Intel Device Helps Overcome Problems With Reading, Learning

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:03 -0800

Intel has released a new gadget for people with vision problems, autism, dyslexia, and other conditions that can make reading difficult. With the Intel Reader you can take pictures of book pages, letters, and product labels and the device will read out the text back while showing magnified print on the screen. While designed to be used by people with certain disabilities, we can also see using this device to learn how to read a new language.

The Intel Reader, about the size of a paperback book, converts printed text to digital text, and then reads it aloud to the user. Its unique design combines a high-resolution camera with the power of an Intel® Atom™ processor, allowing users to point, shoot and listen to printed text.

When the Intel Reader is used together with the Intel® Portable Capture Station, large amounts of text, such as a chapter or an entire book, can be easily captured for reading later. Users will have convenient and flexible access to a variety of printed materials, helping to not only increase their freedom, but improve their productivity and efficiency at school, work and home. The Intel Reader has been endorsed by the International Dyslexia Association as an important advance in assistive technology. Additionally, Intel is working with the Association of Assistive Technology Act Programs, the Council for Exceptional Children, Lighthouse International, the National Center for Learning Disabilities and the National Federation of the Blind to help reach and address the needs of people who have difficulty reading print.

Press release: Ready, Set, Read: Intel® Reader Transforms Printed Text to Spoken Word ...

Product page: Intel Reader ...

Image Recognition Technology to Expand Abilities of Microsoft's Digital Camera Device

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:55:48 -0800

Microsoft has partnered with Oxford Metrics Group (Oxford, UK), a company specializing in computer vision applications, to further develop Microsoft's ViconRevue (formerly SenseCam) digital camera-like gadget. The device continuously snaps a picture every 30 seconds, hence it might be worn around the neck by patients with memory problems (i.e. Alzheimer's, s/p hypoxic/ischemic encephalopathy). The device is thought to help people refresh themselves on the activities of the past day. With Oxford Metrics Group's software built-in, the ViconRevue should be able to perform some pretty nifty tricks by recognizing objects and faces in its field of view.

Press release: IP LICENSE AGREEMENT WITH MICROSOFT...

Flashback: Digital Cameras for Dementia Patients

Novel Product Design Aims to Address Common Autism Behavior

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:43:02 -0800

Some children with autism tend to perform compulsive rituals, and these can distract kids from the rest of the world. Jesse Resnick, a recent graduate of the product design program at Parsons the New School for Design, proposes a new toy-like device to grab kids' attention and limit compulsive behavior to a short time. The Repeat wrist worn device has flashing rubber knobs that blink in preprogrammed patterns, while the child follows along by using fingers to pinch them. According to the product page, Repeat is "an early-intervention tool for autistic children designed to replace repetitive behaviours (arm flapping, head banging, etc.) with a less distracting, less harmful alternative." It's not clear whether the benefit will be clinically valuable, but it does seem like a novel idea.

Product design page: REPEAT...

(hat tip: Yanko Design)

Aspect Medical's Quantitative EEG Predicts Long Term Effectiveness of Anti Depression Medication

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 01:00:58 -0800

Aspect Medical Systems, maker of the bispectral index (BIS) monitor thought to be useful for monitoring anesthesia awareness, has been dealt a devastating blow last year by a study published in NEJM under the title Anesthesia Awareness and the Bispectral Index. The 2000 strong patient trial reported by Avidan, et al from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found the company's processed electroencephalogram technology is not essential "as part of standard practice."

Now Aspect Medical Systems is trying its hand in a new market: psychiatry. Finding an appropriate medication, as well as its dose, for a particular patient with bipolar disorder can take a good deal of time and is done without real quantitative tools. The clinical trial being reported by Aspect Medical is supposedly showing that the company's EEG-based system can be used to track whether a given SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, like Prozac or Paxil) is having positive results on a patient a week after initial doses were administered.

The BRITE trial was conducted in collaboration with leading investigators from nine facilities across the United States and enrolled 375 patients. Patient response was defined by researchers as a 50 percent improvement in depression symptoms as measured by the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) after seven weeks of treatment, and remission was defined as recovery from depression (HAM-D <7) after seven weeks of treatment. In the BRITE study, ATR at one week predicted response and remission with 74 percent accuracy in subjects treated for seven weeks with escitalopram, which was statistically significant. Modeled study data also indicates that subjects who were ATR predicted non-responders to escitalopram had better outcomes if they were randomized to switch to bupropion, an antidepressant with a different mechanism of action than escitalopram.
Data from a study at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigating ATR as a predictor of treatment response was also recently published in European Neuropsychopharmacology. The MGH study evaluated ATR in 82 major depression patients receiving selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), and venlafaxine, and showed that use of ATR after the first week of antidepressant treatment may be predictive of treatment efficacy.

Continuing the ATR research effort, BRITE trial investigator Dr. Ian Cook at UCLA received a significant grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health to conduct a multi-year follow-on study of ATR called the PRISE-MD study (Personalized Response Indicators of SSRI Effectiveness in Major Depression). The PRISE-MD study will prospectively evaluate the ability of ATR to predict response to escitalopram as well as the clinical utility of ATR-directed treatment with escitalopram or an alternate treatment with bupropion.

Aspect Medical Systems press statement: Aspect Medical Systems Announces Publication of BRITE-MD Trial Results in Psychiatry Research...

More about the technology at Technology Review...

Abstract in Psychiatry Research: Comparative effectiveness of biomarkers and clinical indicators for predicting outcomes of SSRI treatment in Major Depressive Disorder: Results of the BRITE-MD study

LENA Audio Monitor Analyses Speech Patterns to Help Detect Autism Earlier

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:35:27 -0800

Autistic children often show specific behavior patterns in the way they speak with others. These patterns, if detected, could be used as an early sign of autism, but enough data needs to be collected in order to help with making a diagnosis. LENA, a device from the LENA Foundation that became available earlier this month, is a portable recorder that can make available a day's worth of a child's interaction to professionals for close review.

From the product page:

What is LENA? LENA is the only technology that automatically collects and analyzes information about a child’s natural language environment and development. The LENA feedback reports help parents improve a child’s cumulative language experience and accelerate that child’s language and cognitive development, and preparedness for school.
Who is LENA for? Parents and caregivers of children ages 0 to 4.

Why is it important? Several hundred research studies over the last 50 years document the importance of talking to and interacting with your baby, especially during the first three years. Groundbreaking research by two renowned university researchers, Drs. Betty Hart, Ph.D., and Todd Risley, Ph.D., revealed that the quantity of talk a child experienced between birth and age 3 directly correlated with the child’s IQ and vocabulary size. The LENA Foundation was founded based on the key elements of this study and our own normative study shows that saying 17,000 words per day, which is equal to the 85th percentile, will greatly enhance your child’s potential.

Who developed it? A team of world-class scientists, including experts in linguistics, speech recognition technology, computer engineering, speech analysis, statistics, speech language pathology, language research and developmental pediatrics. Recognizing that achievement gaps already exist at kindergarten entry, LENA was developed to give parents useful information to help ensure they are providing the richest language environment possible to their children during the critical years between birth and age 4, before they enter school.

How does it work? Parents follow a simple three-step process, 2-3 times a month:

1. In the morning, slip the LENA Digital Language Processor (DLP) into the pocket of specially designed LENA clothing.
2. At the end of the day, plug the DLP into your PC. The audio data will transfer and software analysis begins.
3. View your reports to analyze your conversations, identify patterns of talk throughout the day and receive percentile rank information.

MIT Technology Review provides additional details:

Richards [Jeffrey Richards, a statistician and database technician for the LENA Foundation --ed.] says the LENABaby software, which he helped develop, starts by breaking down the 16-hour audio stream into segments. Each segment is automatically classified according to the type of sound contained in the clip, such as sounds from the child, a parent, or television. Vocalizations from the child are then assessed further using complex algorithms that look at a variety of factors, such as the phonological composition of the each sound and how sounds are clustered and paired. "We're simultaneously looking across many dimensions at the same time," says Richards. Using LENA's database of previously analyzed audio, the software considers how these characteristics compare to those of children developing normally, children with delayed language development, and autistic children.
LENABaby can be used for more than a basic diagnosis, helping to track a child's language development. This could make it a valuable tool for clinicians who otherwise have to rely on data collected during brief, infrequent visits.

Brainsway's Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Gets European Regulatory Approval for Treatment of Depression

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 08:15:01 -0800

Brainsway, a firm building transcranial magnetic stimulation systems (TMS) out of Jerusalem, Israel, just received European approval to market its devices for the treatment of depression. The TMS treatment is likely to be used initially for cases of severe drug resistant depression. But we can envision a day when this technology becomes a mainstream therapeutic option for bipolar disorder and some other psychiatric diseases.

About the technology from Brainsway:

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive technique used to apply brief magnetic pulses to the brain. The pulses are administered by passing high currents through an electromagnetic coil placed adjacent to a patient's scalp. The pulses induce an electric field in the underlying brain tissue. When the induced field is above a certain threshold, and is directed in an appropriate orientation relative the brain's neuronal pathways, localized axonal depolarizations are produced, thus activating the neurons in the relevant brain structure.
Standard TMS coils are limited to activation of only cortical brain regions, up to a depth of about 1.5 cm. Hence when treating depression with a standard TMS system, the limbic system, which is related to mood regulation and is generally deeper than 1.5 cm, is only indirectly affected, through secondary processes involving cortical structures, which are directly activated by TMS and then affect the deeper limbic system structures.

Globes Online: Brainsway depression treatment gets European OK...

Product page: Brainsway Deep TMS System...

Flashbacks: Brainsway TMS archives...

rethink autism Online Platform for Autism Therapy at Home

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:06:44 -0800

Therapy sessions for autistic kids are not only expensive, but can also present a daunting challenge that typically involves going to an unfamiliar clinical environment. To help parents and caretakers work directly with kids in their own home, rethink autism online training application has been developed. According to the company with the same name, the application is based on applied behavior analysis (ABA) techniques. By offering video demonstrations of effective therapeutic approaches, coupled with a platform for development of personalized lesson plans, rethink autism may serve as a complement to existing therapy sessions as well as an effective option for those without access to professionals.

Here's a company introduction to the rethink autism program:

Link: rethink autism

orbiTouch Keyboard Helps Autistic Kids Get The Word Out

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:04:09 -0800

Computers can provide a layer of separation that can be helpful to interacting with autistic kids, consequently they have become a popular tool for one on one therapy sessions. The keyboard, though, can be too confusing and difficult to use and can itself become an obstacle to communication. And since autistic kids tend to be visual learners, a new project that uses a different type of keyboard is helping kids learn to communicate with their families and therapists. The orbiTouch from Blue Orb (Maitland, Florida) is a keyboard, originally developed for people with bad hands , that sports two controllers that, with the help of a color chart, let the user select which letter is to be typed.

The National Science Foundation reports on Project Blue Skies:

With Project Blue Skies, the hardware is matched to lesson plans, training aids such as games, and assessment tools. The two-grip device is ideal for people with autism because it is less distracting than a keyboard and does not require finger motion.
In addition, the various letter and number combinations are created by matching color schemes indicated on the two grips, so the training curriculum matches well to a game-like environment.

Teachers guide the students and monitor their progress, ultimately helping the kids better communicate with their families. While the primary goal of Project Blue Skies is to help people with autism develop stronger social skills, McAlindon [Pete McAlindon of BlueOrb] is working with partners to start integrating standard coursework into the program.

Press release: Removing the Barriers of Autism

Link: Project Blue Skies

Product page: orbiTouch Keyless Ergonomic Keyboard

VA to Trial Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for ADD

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:02 -0800

Israeli business newspaper Globes is reporting that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has signed an agreement with Brainsway, a Jerusalem company profiled by us many times before, to trial the firm's deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) device on twenty patients with attention deficit disorder. Experts believe that TMS technology might become increasingly useful as a new way to treat a variety of psychiatric and neurological problems, such as bipolar disorder, cocaine or nicotine addiction, or even as a treatment for symptoms of Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis.

More about the upcoming trial from Globes...

Flashbacks: Brainsway to Test TMS for Smoking Cessation; Magnetic Brain Stimulation for Cocaine Addiction, Multiple Sclerosis?; Neuronetics TMS Depression Therapy Gets FDA OK; Experiencing Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation; Positive Results Reported for Deep TMS H System For Depression; Deep TMS Technology by Brainsway

Think Your Own Music Outloud

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:22:05 -0800

You know that tune you hum to yourself in your head? Or maybe that song that is stuck in your brain? Now, thanks to MRI researchers, you can play that for everyone around you. Dan Loyd and researchers at Trinity College have developed a media player for your brain.

Using MRI images to study active parts of the brain during various tasks or thoughts, pitches are asigned to different regions. These are then used to generate notes played at varying intensities to match the intensity of the active brain region.

While this may seem fun and whimsical, the motivation for this work is much more serious. Lloyd is comparing scans of volunteers with dementia and schizophrenia patients to gain insight into unlocking the mysteries of these conditions.

New Scientist : Eavesdropping on the music of the brain

Trinity College: Dan Lloyd

(hat tip to Gizmodo)