We present two studies that have advanced the design of brain-body interfaces for use in the rehabilitation of individuals with severe neurological impairment due to traumatic brain injury. We first developed and evaluated an adaptive cursor acceleration algorithm based on screen areas. This improved the initial design, but was too inflexible to let users make the most of their highly varied abilities. Only some individuals were well served by this adaptive interface. We therefore developed and evaluated an approach based on personalized tile layouts.The rationales for both designs are presented, along with details of their implementation. Evaluation studies for each are reported, which show that we have extended the user population who can use our interfaces relative to previous studies. We have also extended the usable functionality for some of our user group. We thus claim that personalized tiling with discrete acceleration has allowed us to extend the usable functionality of brain-body interfaces to a wider population with traumatic brain injury, thus creating new options for neurorehabiliation.
In comparison to all types of injury, those to the brain are among the most likely to result in death or permanent disability. A certain percentage of these brain-injured people cannot communicate, recreate, or control their environment due to severe motor impairment. This group of individuals with severe head injury has received little from assistive technology. Brain computer interfaces have opened up a spectrum of assistive technologies, which are particularly appropriate for people with traumatic brain-injury, especially those who suffer from "locked-in" syndrome. Previous research in this area developed brain body interfaces so that this group of brain-injured people can communicate, recreate and launch applications communicate using computers despite the severity of their brain injury, except for visually impaired and comatose participants. This paper reports on an exploratory investigation carried out with visually impaired using facial muscles or electromyography (EMG) to communicate using brain body interfaces.
This paper discusses an investigation carried out on choosing the appropriate brain-body interface for a group of non-verbal severely brain injured participants to aid communication and recreation. Although extensive research has been carried out in the last few years with invasive and non-invasive brain-body interfaces for the traumatic brain injured community, not enough has filtered through to be used as an everyday tool for communications.
Multimedia has been used creatively to entertain and educate, and can also be used for therapeutic and medical purposes. This paper addressed this issue by incorporating multimedia to design and develop an assistive device to help disabled children with speech impairments in mainstream education. The appropriate methodology for developing such an interface was investigated. Relevant multimedia, psychology, social and educational theories were taken into account. Based on this literature review, interfaces to enhance pronunciation were designed, developed and tested.
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