Rehab Archive

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Tactile Sensors Expand Ability of Prosthetic Technology

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy are continuing development of the Smart Hand prosthesis that features sensors and a feedback mechanism to bring feeling to patients equipped with the device. The prosthesis uses severed nerves as a channel for controlling motion and for sending sensory information from fingertips back to the brain.

Here's a look from the BBC of the Smart Hand system:

Thursday, November 12, 2009

New Intel Device Helps Overcome Problems With Reading, Learning

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 ...

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Thursday, November 5, 2009

Freedom Leg Replaces Crutches for Easier Mobility

Everyone hates having to use crutches after a leg injury, so a company that started as a bicycle manufacturer and recently evolved into medical mobility products thinks it's got the answer. The Freedom Leg from Forward Mobility out of Edmonds, Washington transfers the weight of the body to the upper leg, completely relieving the injured area from strain. Made out of composite materials, the device has a weight of only 2.6 pounds (1.2 kilo).

Go beyond the limitations of crutches, wheelchairs or scooters. It is truly an off-loading prosthetic that allows the user to fully integrate the device into their lives, giving them complete mobility. The user has the ability to accomplish all their normal day to day tasks without assistance, while at the same time keeping the strength in upper muscles of the injured leg.

Product page: Freedom Leg...

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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

AlterG M300 Trainer Takes The Strain Off Fragile Joints

Being able to drop half your body weight for a run can take quite a bit of strain off your joints. People recovering from surgery or injuries can use the AlterG (Fremont, California) treadmill to do just that and get a good workout for their lower extremities muscles. The device is able to continuously pump air into a cavity enclosing the legs and helps lift a person a bit, thereby reducing effective weight. AlterG just released a new model, the M300, which costs a third of their previous unit, features the same technology, and looks pretty damn slick.

Control unweighting from 100% to as low as 20% in 1% increments

Allows full range of motion for upper and lower body

Natural gait mechanics promote improved balance and strengthening

Keeps user in place, supports laterally and prevents falls

Highly comfortable at any level of partial weight-bearing for prolonged exercise

Accommodates a wide range of body types (90 - 400 lbs)

Easy-to-use controls for decrease/increase in body weight, speed and incline.

Press release: AlterG's Revolutionary Anti-Gravity Treadmill(R) Reaches a Wider Audience With the New M300 Series...

Flashback: G-Trainer Weight Reducing Treadmill Approved as Medgadget by FDA

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Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Power Loader Exoskeleton

The Japanese are continuing to develop robotic devices that want to solve problems that don't really exist. Here's a force-feedback enabled exoskeleton that Gizmodo describes as a "dual-arm power amplification robot" that "uses 18 electromagnetic motors that let the wearer lift 220lbs without blinking."

More from Gizmodo: Power Loader Exoskeleton Gives Superhuman Strength...

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Carrier: A New Concept for Wheelchair Design

Students at the University of Applied Arts Vienna have developed a novel powered wheelchair design that may overcome some of the limitations of contemporary models. For a start, the chair can glide over a toilet and, thanks to a hatch on the bottom, no one has to perform acrobatic tricks in the loo. The chair also articulates and provides a power lift to help reach things that are higher up. Additionally, a novel combination of treads and wheels allows riding up and down stairs, though we would like to see a final product that can actually pull this off.

The CARRIER is an advanced wheelchair for handicapped and temporary disabled people. It has multiple features, that make it more usable than a regular wheelchair and gives the user a chance to spend the day as usually as without a wheelchair.
A big problem for handicapped people is the toilet, thats why the CARRIER is able to go directly over standard toilets and open the seat, so the user doesn't have to get off the wheelchair. To go over stairs it uses the special 'Galileo Wheel' that combines the handling advantages of an ordinary wheel and climbing ability of a track drive. The last function to allow a maximum of freedom is the upstanding position mode, which gives the user the chance to reach higher objects, or talk to standing people on the same eye level. In addition the backrest can be folded away and the height is adjustable for easier seat change.

Link: Carrier robotic wheelchair

(hat tip: Yanko Design)

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Smart Robotic Hand May Improve Prosthetic Design

Robotics engineers from Harvard and Yale universities teamed up to create an interesting new robotic hand that can manipulate things in a gentle human-like way. Because every object needs to be grabbed uniquely, so as to be able to pick it up while not damaging it with a wrong grip or too hard of a squeeze, the system uses a smart sensing platform to actively adjust the fingers. Clearly this technology could find good use in robotic surgical systems, or in making hand prostheses easier and more natural to operate.

Technology Review reports:

Dollar's [Aaron Dollar, assistant professor at Yale University --ed.] robotic hand consists of four fingers made out of a flexible, durable polymer. A single motor and spool tugs on the finger joints to open and close the hand. Each soft polymer finger contains embedded sensors, as detailed in the August 2009 online issue of Autonomous Robots. Dollar embedded two piezoelectric sensors--which report physical contact as a voltage response--into each of the four fingers through a molding process called shape deposition manufacturing (SDM). This process allows different materials to be deposited one layer at a time, so that sensors or other items can be set inside the material, which also protects those components.
The system currently employs only one type of grasp--the "power" grip, which is useful for picking up some objects, such as a soda can, a ball, or a hammer. Next, Dollar hopes to add a "precision" grip, to enable the hand to pick up smaller objects, such as a pen.

More at Technology Review...

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Cheap and Simple Braille Labeler

MIT engineering students have developed a labeling device to help identify just about anything by blind people. If you're not blind, just imagine sorting through a CD or record collection without being able to see.

A team of MIT students in last fall's Product Engineering Processes (2.009) class searched for a better way. They came up with a prototype device that is small and easily portable, can produce the entire panoply of possible Braille characters (including commonly used two-character contractions), and can be relatively easily loaded and operated by touch. Although it is still under development, they hope the device, which they have named the 6dot Braille Labeler, can ultimately be produced for sale at around $200.
Some of the students continued to refine the product after the class ended, producing an improved version that won a $7,500 prize in the spring IDEAS competition (a joint project of the MIT Public Service Center and the Edgerton Center that recognizes innovations that benefit communities worldwide). Eight students from the mechanical engineering department, some who graduated in June and others who are still enrolled, joined by two others, are in the process of forming a company to continue development of the labeler. Over the summer they conducted field tests around the country with 25 potential users of the product, giving each about a half-hour to work with the device.

The battery-operated 6dot device uses standard Dymo label tape, and has a built-in microprocessor that can store up to 16 characters in case the user types faster than the device can emboss the tape. It has six buttons across the top — one for each of the six dots in that make up a Braille character — that can be operated by placing two hands on the unit's top, very much like touch-typing. The device makes sounds as it embosses each character, providing some auditory feedback to confirm that it's working.

When the label is finished, the user activates a built-in blade to cut the label off. Ultimately, the developers plan to add another blade that will score the end of the tape to make it easier to peel off the backing, but that has proved more difficult to achieve than they had anticipated.

They're also working on simplifying the system for loading and unloading a roll of tape to make that easier to do by touch. Right now, "it's a little more challenging than we'd like it to be," Pikhart says. They hope to make it as easy as loading and ejecting a VHS tape cartridge.

MIT press release: Braille made simple...

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Friday, August 28, 2009

Japanese Firm Touts New Three Wheeled, Powered Wheelchair

Japanese engineers from Veda International Robot R&D Center have unveiled a new motorized wheelchair that features a forward leaning posture and looks like it could be on a race track.

Here's a quick video of the wheelchair in motion:

More at Veda Center Blog...

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Monday, August 17, 2009

With BrainPort Vision Technology One Day The Blind May See The World With The Tongue

Wicab, Inc out of Middleton, Wisconsin is developing a device that converts visual images into electrical signals that are fed to a user's tongue via a special "lollipop". A special electrode panel of the lollipop essentially draws images on the tongue by firing electric pulses on some of the pixels and not others, supposedly producing a feeling similar to a carbonated beverage.

Check out the device in this video:

In United States, the BrainPort Vision Device has not yet been submitted to the FDA, hence it is not available for sale. It remains limited to investigational uses only.

BrainPort Vision Technology...

Device info page: BrainPort Vision ...

(hat tip: Engadget)

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Friday, August 7, 2009

Smart Cane Helps Bring Rehab Out of Rehab

To use a crutch properly after an injury is important if healing is to be promoted. However, monitoring a patient's physiotherapeutic progress outside of the rehab center is next to impossible.

Now, a physiotherapist and a computer scientist from the University of Southampton have teamed up to create an "intelligent crutch" that features force sensors and accelerometers. This smart crutch can provide info on its own movement and calculate the pressure that is applied to the leg. By processing the data, the device supposedly provides visual cues to the user when improper usage is perceived.

More from the press office at University of Southampton: Intelligent crutch with sensors to monitor usage...

(hat tip: The Engineer Online)

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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Smart Cane For Blind Gives Local Awareness With Help of RFID

A group of engineering students from Central Michigan University is working on an electronic cane for blind people that would provide contextual information on the environment around the user. The team envisions a future where RFID chips are implanted into street signs, store fronts, and similar locations, and the cane reads those and feeds the info back to the user. The device also features an ultrasound sensor to help detect objects ahead of the cane tip.

More about the Smart Cane from Central Michigan University:

The Smart Cane, which has an ultrasonic sensor mounted on it, is paired with a messenger-style bag that is worn across the shoulder. A miniature navigational system inside the bag and the Smart Cane work together to detect RFID tags located on mini flags sticking out of the ground.
A speaker located on the bag strap voices alerts when an obstacle is detected, and also informs the user which direction to move. For those who are visually impaired and cannot hear, the students created a glove that uses sensors to vibrate different fingertips providing an alert or direction.

The students recently set up flags on CMU's campus and tested the system with volunteers who found it to be effective, especially with navigation. Their recommendations along with data collected by the student team will be passed along to future student design teams with the goal that a fully functional system can be developed and implemented at CMU.

Press release: Smart Cane gives a new direction...

(hat tip: Crave)

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Monday, July 20, 2009

Blind Drivers Coming to Road Near You

A group of students at the Virginia Tech College of Engineering are building a car for the blind. With the assistance of a laser range finder, the car's on-board computer guides the driver to avoid obstacles. Now we're all for helping blind folks take a greater command of their lives, but the idea seems a bit silly: if your technology is good enough to tell the driver how to drive, then it must be good enough to control the pedals and the steering wheel. But we may be wrong, and this seems like an interesting engineering project regardless.

From Virginia Tech:

Early models of the Blind Driver Challenge vehicle relied more on technologies for fully autonomous vehicles, previously developed by Virginia Tech mechanical engineering students as part of the DARPA Urban Challenge (www.vt.edu/spotlight/achievement/2007-10-29_victortango/2007-10-29-victortango.html). The student team redesigned the vehicle so that the blind motorist has complete control of the driving process, as any sighted driver would.
This change in approach led to new challenges, including how to effectively convey the high bandwidth of information from the laser sensors scanning the vehicle's surrounding environment to the driver fast enough and accurate enough to allow safe driving. As a result, the team developed non-visual interface technologies, including a vibrating vest for feedback on speed, a click counter steering wheel with audio cues, spoken commands for directional feedback, and a unique tactile map interface that utilizes compressed air to provide information about the road and obstacles surrounding the vehicle.

The 2009-10 student team already is planning major changes to the technology, including replacing the dirt buggy vehicle with a fully electric car commonly used by traffic officers in downtown city centers. The all-electric vehicle would reduce the vibration which can cause problems to the laser sensor, and it will provide clean electric power for the computing units and that is better for the environment.

Press release: Blind can take wheel with vehicle designed by university engineering design team...

Project page: Blind Driver Challenge...

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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Access: Inclusive Fitness Equipment

The James Dyson Awards have introduced this year a "People's Choice" component of the judging process to determine the best in contemporary design. One of the entries we found interesting is The Access, an exercise machine designed for people with and without disabilities to work out the upper body. The features include push button weight selection, adjustable arms for different size people to get proper leverage, and controls that require little manual dexterity.

Here's a description from the contest entry:

The Access is universal fitness equipment that accommodates those with various disabilities and able-bodied users alike. It bridges the gap between segregated users and provides an equal platform of fitness for all. Comprised of a central tower with two arms extending laterally, each arm rotates 180 degrees independently. Additionally, each arm contains a cart that travels the length of the arm. This configuration allows any user, regardless of their size, shape, or mobility levels to achieve a personalized workout catered to their body type. No longer does the user adapt to the equipment, but the equipment adapts to its user. The Access provides an non intimidating, seamless interaction between user and machine. No longer does the user need to pull pins, pinch fingers, and contort their body in awkward positions. All of the touch points are designed in which even the most limited user, an incomplete quadriplegic, can perform an independent workout with ease.

Link: The Access: Inclusive Fitness Equipment...

James Dyson Award entries...

(hat tip: Core77)

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Monday, July 13, 2009

It's a COGAIN World! Locked In People to Walk, Fly in Virtual Environments

Fully paralyzed folks are strictly limited in their ability to interact in the real world. Luckily, the virtual world of gaming and 3D environments like Second Life does not require working arms and legs. All that is truly needed there is a viable interface for easy control of an avatar on the screen. To make these environments accessible for people with locked in syndromes resulting from injury or stroke, a project called COGAIN, or Communication by Gaze Interaction, has brought European researchers together to tackle the issue.

From CORDIS News:

According to the researchers, the gaming-with-gaze software runs together with eye trackers currently available on the market. The eye trackers use cameras to monitor users' eye movements as they gaze at a computer screen.
Eye movements of able-bodied gamers were evaluated by the developers in order to set up a visual heat map that would trigger commands depending on where users look, the team said. The various eye movement patterns are converted into 'gaze gestures' which are used to activate movement or action commands.

'In the current set-up, we have programmed 12 gesture sequences to activate different keyboard or mouse events,' Professor Istance [Professor Howell Istance, De Montfort University in the UK] told ICT Results. 'Many more commands are possible but the total number is limited by the users' memory and the need to differentiate between when someone wants to input a command and when they are just looking at the screen.'

The team said the gaming-with-gaze software should make the avatars of people with disabilities nearly indistinguishable in their behaviour and abilities from those of able-bodied people in online games and environments.

CASBliP Technology Aims to Turn Ears Into Eyes for Blind

A collaborative European project to build a system that converts visual input into audio signals may lead to a practical product to help the blind navigate. CASBliP, or Cognitive Aid System for Blind People, involves scientists and technology developed at the University of Bristol, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Universidad de La Laguna, and Siemens AG. By bringing together specialists in computer vision, visualization, 3D modeling, and sensor technology, the CASBliP can already create an audio representation of its physical environment.

Project's technological objectives from the info page:

The main objective is to obtain a device for the whole V. I. community: totally blind, partially sighted, and people in a situation of progressive loss of vision.

To integrate the developments of University of Bristol (in image segmentation and image enhancement), Siemens (3D Real World perception) and Universidad de La Laguna (in audio representation of space) into a unique basic prototype with the purpose of assisting visually impaired people in mobility in outdoor spaces.

To develop new ways of interfacing with V. I. people: to develop a visual interface (producing coloured and simplified images) for the partially blind people and to develop an acoustic interface (producing semantic and pixelated acoustic maps) for the totally blind.

To develop a system able to calculate a person's head orientation in a static and dynamic situation.

To integrate in the prototype the 3D modelling system and the intelligent system for the detection of risks and obstacles.

To integrate in a common platform all the data acquired from the environment from different sources: artificial vision system, 3D Real World Recognition System, Positioning system. This platform has to be open.

To generate the necessary communication protocols to integrate all the mentioned modules.

To finally develop a prototype which can be commercialised.

During the project a simple device able to make a direct transformation from the acquisition system into an acoustic representation will be created as a final product (month 18).

Project page: CASBliP...

(hat tip: The Engineer)

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Monday, July 6, 2009

Tongue Controller Looks Promising For Paralyzed

A year ago we wrote about a new tongue controller designed to give quadriplegics the ability to operate external devices like wheelchairs and computers. Now results from a clinical trial testing the capabilities of the interface for the severely handicapped have been presented at the annual meeting of the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA), and they show that the technology is intuitive and precise enough for patients to quickly become acquainted with it in a short period of time.

At the beginning of each trial, Ghovanloo and graduate students Xueliang Huo and Chih-wen Cheng attached a small magnet -- the size of a grain of rice -- to the participant’s tongue with tissue adhesive. Movement of this magnetic tracer was detected by an array of magnetic field sensors mounted on wireless headphones worn by the subject. The sensor output signals were wirelessly transmitted to a portable computer, which was carried on the wheelchair.

The signals were processed to determine the relative motion of the magnet with respect to the array of sensors in real-time. This information was then used to control the movements of the cursor on a computer screen or to substitute for the joystick function in a powered wheelchair.

Ghovanloo chose the tongue to operate the system because unlike hands and feet, which are controlled by the brain through the spinal cord, the tongue is directly connected to the brain by a cranial nerve that generally escapes damage in severe spinal cord injuries or neuromuscular diseases.

Before using the Tongue Drive system, the subjects trained the computer to understand how they would like to move their tongues to indicate different commands. A unique set of specific tongue movements was tailored for each individual based on the user’s abilities, oral anatomy and personal preferences. For the first computer test, the user issued commands to move the computer mouse left and right. Using these commands, each subject played a computer game that required moving a paddle horizontally to prevent a ball from hitting the bottom of the screen.

After adding two more commands to their repertoire -- up and down -- the subjects were asked to move the mouse cursor through an on-screen maze as quickly and accurately as possible.

Then the researchers added two more commands -- single and double mouse clicks -- to provide the subject with complete mouse functionality. When a randomly selected symbol representing one of the six commands appeared on the computer screen, the subject was instructed to issue that command within a specified time period. Each subject completed 40 trials for each time period.

After the computer sessions, the subjects were ready for the wheelchair driving exercise. Using forward, backward, right, left and stop/neutral tongue commands, the subjects maneuvered a powered wheelchair through an obstacle course.

The obstacle course contained 10 turns and was longer than a professional basketball court. Throughout the course, the users had to perform navigation tasks such as making a U-turn, backing up and fine-tuning the direction of the wheelchair in a limited space. Subjects were asked to navigate through the course as fast as they could, while avoiding collisions.

Each subject operated the powered wheelchair using two different control strategies: discrete mode, which was designed for novice users, and continuous mode for more experienced users. In discrete mode, if the user issued the command to move forward and then wanted to turn right, the user would have to stop the wheelchair before issuing the command to turn right. The stop command was selected automatically when the tongue returned to its resting position, bringing the wheelchair to a standstill.

“Discrete mode is a safety feature particularly for novice users, but it reduces the agility of the wheelchair movement,” explained Ghovanloo. “In continuous mode, however, the user is allowed to steer the powered wheelchair to the left or right as it is moving forward and backward, thus making it possible to follow a curve.”

Each subject completed the course at least twice using each strategy while the researchers recorded the navigation time and number of collisions. Using discrete control, the average speed for the five subjects was 5.2 meters per minute and the average number of collisions was 1.8. Using continuous control, the average speed was 7.7 meters per minute and the average number of collisions was 2.5.

Press release: Tongue Power: Clinical Trial Shows Quadriplegic Individuals Can Operate Powered Wheelchairs and Computers with Tongue Drive System...

Flashback: Tongue Controller Promises Better Device Interaction for Severely Disabled...

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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Golfing Now Open to Disabled,Thanks to New Technology

The Paramobile from Parabasetec (Bodensee, Germany) is a new type of powered wheelchair specifically designed for golfers. The wheelchair is also suitable for hunting, archery, and any other activity that require standing but not necessarily walking. This machine seems to be an item that golf course operators should have on hand for disabled players.

Here's a promo video:

Product page: Parabasetec...

Brochure...

(hat tip: Coolest Gadgets)

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Monday, June 29, 2009

Toyota Working on Thought Controlled Wheelchairs

Not to be outdone by Honda with their assisted walking device earlier this year, Toyota has announced that they are working on a wheelchair that can be navigated with brain waves. You think of the direction and the wheelchair goes in that direction.

Photo Credit: YOSHIKAZU TSUNO / AFP

The interface control works such that a computer analyzes brain waves through electroencephalography electrodes while an individual thinks of a direction to move. The system then translates those wave patterns into a movement direction of the chair. Toyota reports that the delay between thought and movement can be as small as 125 milliseconds with an accuracy rating of 95%.

This technology is in the very beginning stages of development, but the hope is that this type of interface can be used for rehabilitation and technology development for patients with limited mobility. Toyota has shown a video of this system in operation, but has not given it to the pubic and has no definitive time table for commercial development.

RIKEN Press Release : Real-time control of wheelchairs with brain waves

Daily Mail : Toyota develops wheelchair that can be steered using brain waves

Flashback : The Future of Legs Is Here, Well, in Detroit

(hat tip: Jalopnik)