Brain–Computer Interfaces on Track to Home: Results of the Evaluation at Disabled End-Users’ Homes and Lessons Learnt

Miralles, Felip; Vargiu, Eloisa; Palou, Xavier Rafael; Solà, Marc; Duawalder, Stefan; Guger, Christoph; Hintermüller, Christoph; Espinosa, Arnau; Lowish, Hannah; Martin, Suzanne; Armstrong, Elaine; Daly, Jean

doi:10.3389/fict.2015.00025

Cited by 18 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Inexpensive technical solutions for EEG recordings (e.g OpenBCI) could be used with custom made headsets but do not provide easy solutions for non-professional users. As noted by Miralles et al [30] the price of BCI is currently the biggest restricting factor for large scale usability studies in the home environment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Brain computer interface usability studies with patients have been tested on several paradigms, including BCI spellers, painting, gaming, environmental control (smart homes) and cognitive rehabilitation [30, 31, 34–43]. However, a very small number of these studies [30, 37, 40] have been performed in patients’ homes, and a trained specialist was often present. A “Back home” project, one of the largest of this kind, tested BCI designed for spelling, gaming and internet browsing on 9 patients at a hospital.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a subsequent study, Miralles et al [30] tested the “Back home” system on a number of patients at hospital but only two patients managed to use the device in their homes for 6 weeks. Daly’s et al [34] usability study of BCI for cognitive rehabilitation of people with traumatic brain injury initially involved 10 participants but only 5 completed all three sessions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Home used, patient self-managed, brain-computer interface for the management of central neuropathic pain post spinal cord injury: usability study

Al-Taleb

Purcell

Fraser

et al. 2019

J NeuroEngineering Rehabil

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BackgroundCentral Neuropathic Pain (CNP) is a frequent chronic condition in people with spinal cord injury (SCI). Previously, we showed that using laboratory brain-computer interface (BCI) technology for neurofeedback (NFB) training, it was possible to reduce CNP in people with SCI. In this study, we show results of patient self-managed treatment in their homes with a BCI-NFB using a consumer EEG device.MethodsUsers: People with chronic SCI (17 M, 3 F, 50.6 ± 14.1 years old), and CNP ≥4 on a Visual Numerical Scale. Location: Laboratory training (up to 4 sessions) followed by home self-managed NFB. User Activity: Upregulating the EEG alpha band power by 10% above a threshold and at the same time downregulating the theta and upper beta (20-30 Hz) band power by 10% at electrode location C4. Technology: A consumer grade multichannel EEG headset (Epoch, Emotiv, USA), a tablet computer and custom made NFB software. Evaluation: EEG analysis, before and after NFB assessment, interviews and questionnaires.ResultsEffectiveness: Out of 20 initially assessed participants, 15 took part in the study. Participants used the system for 6.9 ± 5.5 (median 4) weeks. Twelve participants regulated their brainwaves in a frequency specific manner and were most successful upregulating the alpha band power. However they typically upregulated power around their individual alpha peak (7.6 ± 0.8 Hz) that was lower than in people without CNP. The reduction in pain experienced was statistically significant in 12 and clinically significant (greater than 30%) in 8 participants. Efficiency: The donning was between 5 and 15 min, and approximately 10–20% of EEG data recorded in the home environment was noise. Participants were mildly stressed when self-administering NFB at home (2.4 on a scale 1–10). User satisfaction: Nine participants who completed the final assessment reported a high level of satisfaction (QUESQ, 4.5 ± 0.8), naming effectiveness, ease of use and comfort as main priorities. The main factors influencing frequency of NFB training were: health related issues, free time and pain intensity.ConclusionPortable NFB is a feasible solution for home-based self-managed treatment of CNP. Compared to pharmacological treatments, NFB has less side effects and provides users with active control over pain.Trial registrationGN15NE124, Registered 9th June 2016.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Home used, patient self-managed, brain-computer interface for the management of central neuropathic pain post spinal cord injury: usability study

Al-Taleb

Purcell

Fraser

et al. 2019

J NeuroEngineering Rehabil

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“…To allow the caregivers to set-up the soft- and hardware without expert supervision, the final Backhome prototype, consists of a graphical user interface that guides the caregivers through the steps necessary to set-up the system and enable the BCI user to control the various applications afterwards (Miralles et al, 2015b ). All the applications mentioned above (speller, web browser, multimedia player, Brain Painting, games for cognitive rehabilitation, switches for environmental control) were integrated into the prototype.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multifunctional Brain-Computer Interface Intended for Home Use: An Evaluation with Healthy Participants and Potential End Users with Dry and Gel-Based Electrodes

et al. 2017

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Current brain-computer interface (BCIs) software is often tailored to the needs of scientists and technicians and therefore complex to allow for versatile use. To facilitate home use of BCIs a multifunctional P300 BCI with a graphical user interface intended for non-expert set-up and control was designed and implemented. The system includes applications for spelling, web access, entertainment, artistic expression and environmental control. In addition to new software, it also includes new hardware for the recording of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. The EEG system consists of a small and wireless amplifier attached to a cap that can be equipped with gel-based or dry contact electrodes. The system was systematically evaluated with a healthy sample, and targeted end users of BCI technology, i.e., people with a varying degree of motor impairment tested the BCI in a series of individual case studies. Usability was assessed in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction. Feedback of users was gathered with structured questionnaires. Two groups of healthy participants completed an experimental protocol with the gel-based and the dry contact electrodes (N = 10 each). The results demonstrated that all healthy participants gained control over the system and achieved satisfactory to high accuracies with both gel-based and dry electrodes (average error rates of 6 and 13%). Average satisfaction ratings were high, but certain aspects of the system such as the wearing comfort of the dry electrodes and design of the cap, and speed (in both groups) were criticized by some participants. Six potential end users tested the system during supervised sessions. The achieved accuracies varied greatly from no control to high control with accuracies comparable to that of healthy volunteers. Satisfaction ratings of the two end-users that gained control of the system were lower as compared to healthy participants. The advantages and disadvantages of the BCI and its applications are discussed and suggestions are presented for improvements to pave the way for user friendly BCIs intended to be used as assistive technology by persons with severe paralysis.

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“…Assistive technologies aim to increase quality of life [3–6], reduce dependence on care giver [7] and reduce dependence on the long term care system [8]. Several studies have demonstrated the effectiveness in the use of environment control interfaces (ECI) for environment control or communication through voice commands [9], scan interfaces based on grid structure, eye tracking [10–12] or brain-computer interface (BCI) based on P300 [13], among others. These software platforms actively aid during the Activities of Daily Living (ADL) improving the independence both at home and outside.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

User activity recognition system to improve the performance of environmental control interfaces: a pilot study with patients

Bertomeu-Motos

Ezquerro

Barios

et al. 2019

J NeuroEngineering Rehabil

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BackgroundAssistive technologies aim to increase quality of life, reduce dependence on care giver and on the long term care system. Several studies have demonstrated the effectiveness in the use of assistive technology for environment control and communication systems. The progress of brain-computer interfaces (BCI) research together with exoskeleton enable a person with motor impairment to interact with new elements in the environment. This paper aims to evaluate the environment control interface (ECI) developed under the AIDE project conditions, a multimodal interface able to analyze and extract relevant information from the environments as well as from the identification of residual abilities, behaviors, and intentions of the user.MethodsThis study evaluated the ECI in a simulated scenario using a two screen layout: one with the ECI and the other with a simulated home environment, developed for this purpose. The sensorimotor rhythms and the horizontal oculoversion, acquired through BCI2000, a multipurpose standard BCI platform, were used to online control the ECI after the user training and system calibration. Eight subjects with different neurological diseases and spinal cord injury participated in this study. The subjects performed simulated activities of daily living (ADLs), i.e. actions in the simulated environment as drink, switch on a lamp or raise the bed head, during ten minutes in two different modes, AIDE mode, using a prediction model, to recognize the user intention facilitating the scan, and Manual mode, without a prediction model.ResultsThe results show that the mean task time spent in the AIDE mode was less than in the Manual, i.e the users were able to perform more tasks in the AIDE mode during the same time. The results showed a statistically significant differences with p<0.001. Regarding the steps, i.e the number of abstraction levels crossed in the ECI to perform an ADL, the users performed one step in the 90% of the tasks using the AIDE mode and three steps, at least, were necessary in the Manual mode. The user’s intention prediction was performed through conditional random fields (CRF), with a global accuracy about 87%.ConclusionsThe environment analysis and the identification of the user’s behaviors can be used to predict the user intention opening a new paradigm in the design of the ECIs. Although the developed ECI was tested only in a simulated home environment, it can be easily adapted to a real environment increasing the user independence at home.

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Brain–Computer Interfaces on Track to Home: Results of the Evaluation at Disabled End-Users’ Homes and Lessons Learnt

Cited by 18 publications

References 19 publications

Home used, patient self-managed, brain-computer interface for the management of central neuropathic pain post spinal cord injury: usability study

Home used, patient self-managed, brain-computer interface for the management of central neuropathic pain post spinal cord injury: usability study

A Multifunctional Brain-Computer Interface Intended for Home Use: An Evaluation with Healthy Participants and Potential End Users with Dry and Gel-Based Electrodes

User activity recognition system to improve the performance of environmental control interfaces: a pilot study with patients

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