May the Patient’s Will, Expressed by Means of Assistive Communication Technologies, be Admissible as Evidence in Court Proceedings?

The article is dedicated to hallmark the problem of accepting evidence of a patient’s will by a court in diverse proceedings, and it being communicated by non-classical means. Modern technologies allow patients to communicate utilizing various electrified appliances, in case the disabled person suffers from an ailment, or a health disorder affecting speech and mental abilities. Such appliances may truly enhance the patient’s quality of life; however, it is uncertain whether such patient may be found to be a competent witness, or the information reflecting their will obtained in a non-classical method may be found to be as convincing evidence by the court. Currently, there is very little judicial precedent dealing with obtaining evidence of the patient’s will by means of assistive communication technologies, though recent Italian legacy has shown such evidence may be accepted by the court, in case forensic-psychiatric examination approves adequacy of the cognitive abilities of the patient, rendering their will competent. Diverse legal systems render the question of patient’s competence differently, and the issue of accepting information as evidence obtained by means of assistive communication technologies will surely become more frequent in disputes relating to testament validity or determining the patient’s will to undergo or forego medical treatment. Such cases may be of high relevance in civil proceedings on withdrawal of life-supporting treatment, which will ultimately result in the patient’s demise. Keywords: patient’s autonomy, patient’s legal capacity, withdrawal of life-supporting treatment, assistive communication technologies, theory of evidence, critically-ill patients.

Smart hand gestures recognition using K-NN based algorithm for video annotation purposes

<span>Sign languages are the most basic and natural form of languages which were used even before the evolution of spoken languages. These sign languages were developed using various sign "gestures" that are made using hand palm. Such gestures are called "hand gestures". Hand gestures are being widely used as an international assistive communication method for deaf people and many life aspects such as sports, traffic control and religious acts. However, the meanings of hand gestures vary among different civilization cultures. Therefore, because of the importance of understanding the meanings of hand gestures, this study presents a procedure whichcan translate such gestures into an annotated explanation. The proposed system implements image and video processing which are recently conceived as one of the most important technologies. The system initially, analyzes a classroom video as an input, and then extracts the vocabulary of twenty gestures. Various methods have been applied sequentially, namely: motion detection, RGB to HSV conversion, and noise removing using labeling algorithms. The extraction of hand parameters is determined by a K-NN algorithm to eventually determine the hand gesture and, hence showing their meanings. To estimate the performance of the proposed method, an experiment using a hand gesture database is performed. The results showed that the suggested method has an average recognition rate of 97%. </span>

Wireless Home Assistive System for Severely Disabled People

A lot of people with severe disabilities such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, motor neuron diseases, cerebral palsy, stroke, and spinal cord injury with intubation always have different degrees of communication problems. Therefore, it is very important to develop an effective and easy use assistive communication system for the severely disabled. In this study, a wireless home assistive system (WHAS) with different types of assistive input accessories sensors, Morse code translator, and human machine interface is developed and tested to help the severely disabled communicate with people and machines. A Morse code translator is implemented as an assistive communication core device to facilitate the input of the severely disabled. For the proposed human–machine interfaces, personal computer-based alternative augmentative communication is developed for patients to communicate with other people easily. To promote the quality of life, the home appliance control interface is developed for the severely disabled to directly control the functions of home appliances by themselves. The experimental results showed that the proposed WHAS is practical and feasible. Therefore, the proposed approach can help severely disabled individuals effectively interact with their surroundings.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication Systems with Signs and Eye Tracker Used in Poland

Patients who do not communicate verbally or speak in an understandable way are a serious problem in providing appropriate care to patients due to a lack of understanding of their needs. Therefore, it is important that nursing staff have the knowledge and skills of alternative and assistive communication to communicate with patients with speech disorders. The purpose of article is to present the current state of knowledge of the alternative and augmentative communication with special consideration the signs used in Poland with a practicular emphasis laid to the revelant description of the eye tracking device. The literature has been reviewed, including also in this relation topics: alternative and augmentative communication, examples of signs used in alternative communication in Poland and communication and eye tracking. Not everyone has the ability to communicate verbally with the environment. In relation to this problem the solution is the alternative and augmentative communication which uses signs and devices to enable the patient to communicate with other people. (JNNN 2020;9(1):39–45) Key Words: alternative communication, augmentative communication, AAC system, speech disorders, eye track, C-Eye