A talk by just sniffing
A newly-developed Israeli device allows even the severely paralyzed or disabled to communicate with the world and control devices, including wheelchairs, all by easily-learned nasal breathing techniques.
Researchers at Rehovot’s Weizmann Institute of Technology, which is considered a world-leader in life science technology, have designed a system that recognizes and translates minor changes in air pressure inside the nostrils into useable electrical signals. The signals can then be used to operate mechanical and electronic devices, and communicate via computers.
“It can actually change the quality of people’s lives, and give them the opportunity to use the internet, to communicate. It’s amazing and exciting for a person who couldn’t communicate with the world to send emails,” Anton Plotkin, an electrical engineering student in the team who helped develop the equipment, told Xinhua.
The team tested the device, as well as an easily-mastered method of sniffing to control it, on quadriplegics and healthy volunteers. After a short period of practice, about 75 percent of users could navigate a motorized wheelchair around a complex path, and play a computer game almost as fast and accurately as with a mouse or joystick.
“After about 15 minutes of practice, he was able to navigate a complicated path,” Plotkin said of one quadriplegic who tested a wheelchair-mounted version of the system, “he was quite successful in using this device.”
Team leader Professor Noam Sobel said “the most stirring tests were those we did with’locked-in syndrome’ patients,” referring to people who are completely paralyzed — that is, “locked into” their bodies.
One of the hospitalized testers, a patient who has been locked in for seven months after suffering a stroke, was able to write her first message to her family after a few days of practice.
“She thanked her family for being with her all the time” throughout her hospitalization, Plotkin said.
And then, “she asked for some privacy,” which was not such a surprising request after being constantly surrounded by family and medical staff, he added.
Another patient, who has been locked in since a traffic accident 18 years ago, wrote that the new device was much easier to use than similar blinking or mouth breathing-based devices.
Ten quadriplegic patients succeeded in operating a computer and writing messages using the sniffing device, a release from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
“With the new system, they were able to communicate with family members, and even initiate communication with the outside. Some wrote poignant messages to their loved ones, sharing with them, for the first time in a very long time, their thoughts and feelings,” Sobel said.
Category: PEOPLE
