Interactivating Rehabilitation through Active Multimodal Feedback and Guidance

This chapter outlines a Human-Computer Interaction inspired approach to rehabilitation of neurological damage (e.g. spinal cord injury) that employs novel, computer guided multimodal feedback in the form of video games or generation of musical content. The authors report an initial exploratory phase of a project aimed at gaining insight into the development of spinal cord injury (SCI) rehabilitation tools. This exploration included observation of a number of patient interactions in their current rehabilitation routines; the development of initial prototype proposals; and finally through to the development of rapid prototypes which can be used in rehabilitation settings. This initial phase has yielded an understanding of the issues surrounding the development of novel technologies for rehabilitation that will direct further research in the area of rehabilitation engineering. Through the integration of novel methods, in particular the use of interactive physical devices, to the rehabilitation of SCI patients, larger scale research into efficacy of the devices we are developing can be undertaken. These developments may eventually beneficially impact upon the instruments used, the training methods applied and the rehabilitation routines undertaken for individuals living with neurological damage.

State-of-the-Art Assistive Technology for People with Dementia

The work is motivated by the expanding demand and limited supply of long-term personal care for People with Dementia (PwD), and assistive technology as an alternative. Telecare allows PwD to live in the comfort of their homes for a longer time. It is challenging to have remote care in smart homes with ambient intelligence, using devices, networks, and activity and plan recognition. Our scope is limited to mostly related work on existing execution environments in smart homes, and activity and plan recognition algorithms which can be applied to PwD living in smart homes. PwD and caregiver needs are addressed in a more holistic healthcare approach, domain challenges include doctor validation and erroneous behaviour, and technical challenges include high maintenance and low accuracy. State-of-the-art devices, networks, activity and plan recognition for physical health are presented; ideas for developing mental training for mental health and social networking for social health are explored. There are two implications of this work: more needs to be done for assistive technology to improve PwD’s mental and social health, and assistive software is not highly accurate and persuasive yet. Our work applies not only to PwD, but also the elderly without dementia and people with intellectual disabilities.

Design of and Experimentation with a Walking Assistance Robot

To help patients with lower limb disabilities walk, a robot was designed to help train patients to stand up. An experimental prototype was developed, and experiments to train patients stand up and walk were performed using this robot. The results show that the robot can help patients to stand from a sitting position, which is the purpose of standing-up training. At the same time, the standing-up mechanism can coordinate with the walking assistance mechanism in the walking training mode, allowing the robot to help patients to perform rehabilitation walking training. The justification of the mechanism design was demonstrated, and thus, the robot can be used for stranding-up training and walking training.

Brain-Machine Interface Using Brain Surface Electrodes

The brain-machine interface (BMI) enables us to control machines and to communicate with others, not with the use of input devices, but through the direct use of brain signals. This chapter describes the integrative approach the authors used to develop a BMI system with brain surface electrodes for real-time robotic arm control in severely disabled people, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients. This integrative BMI approach includes effective brain signal recording, accurate neural decoding, robust robotic control, a wireless and fully implantable device, and a noninvasive evaluation of surgical indications.

A Review of Current Approaches of Brain Computer Interfaces

Since the first recordings of brain electrical activity more than 100 years ago remarkable contributions have been done to understand the brain functionality and its interaction with environment. Regardless of the nature of the brain-computer interface BCI, a world of opportunities and possibilities has been opened not only for people with severe disabilities but also for those who are pursuing innovative human interfaces. Deeper understanding of the EEG signals along with refined technologies for its recording is helping to improve the performance of EEG based BCIs. Better processing and features extraction methods, like Independent Component Analysis (ICA) and Wavelet Transform (WT) respectively, are giving promising results that need to be explored. Different types of classifiers and combination of them have been used on EEG BCIs. Linear, neural and nonlinear Bayesian have been the most used classifiers providing accuracies ranges between 60% and 90%. Some demand more computational resources like Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifiers but give good generality. Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) classifiers provide poor generality but low computational resources, making them optimal for some real time BCIs. Better classifiers must be developed to tackle the large patterns variability across different subjects by using every available resource, method or technology.

A Parent’s Guide to Support Technologies for Preschool Students with Disabilities

Parents encounter many challenges when facing the need to raise and support a child with a disability. Many find technology to be of assistance, first turning to the Internet as a source of information and later turning to assistive technologies to directly support the needs of their child. This chapter outlines the multiple uses of technology related to the raising and support of young children with disabilities. The information provided serves to give an overview perspective while simultaneously providing actual specifics related to technology that can be useful to parents throughout the journey of raising a child with special needs.

Criteria of Development of Adaptive Didactic Games for People with Intellectual Disability

Children with intellectual disability have a diminished ability of social intelligence; thus, it is necessary to develop abilities in the area “use of the community” in order to suitably use these resources. An educative alternative is the use of didactic games in order to instruct disabled people. The approach used in this chapter is to propose criteria to developing games for people with intellectual disability. The authors use prototypes of games like for example to describe the proposed criteria applied in the areas of development and the situations of learning towards which the game focuses, in order to obtain the learning, as it is the intention of the game. The result that is expected is to enable these players so that they are self-sufficient to obtain inclusion of these vulnerable groups to the social surroundings. Concluding the chapter is a proposal for the development of a formal game by a company that could commercialize it and make it available for the targeted community.

Accessibility Implementation for Disabled Students in PMBOLD Environments

Project management theory provides an organized, cost-effective approach to providing an accessible e-learning environment. Such a collaborative project has the opportunity to bring together such professionals as instructional designers, disability services staff, and institutional researchers. Accessibility as an afterthought is a costly approach, and disabled students are a large enough minority to seek equality of opportunity. E-learning accessibility empowers the individual by providing educational content in formats that not only encourage collaboration and learning, but also reduce frustration and develop a sense of inclusiveness. A project manager who understands the importance of e-learning accessibility will be able to grow the project from the ground up in a manner that empowers the disabled, while benefiting all learners.

Web-Based Experimentation for Students with Learning Disabilities

Assistive technologies can go a long way in helping learning disabled students to keep-up with their classmates. The ubiquity of internet as an active social networking, communication, and education platform has opened up a wide range of new possibilities for web-based lectures and experimentation that can be used to assist learning disabled students. To this end, the authors developed and applied Automated Internet Modeling (AIM) Lab dedicated to semiconductor device modeling and characterization. Their lab has been extensively used for teaching courses on semiconductor devices at senior and graduate levels. Recently, AIM-lab incorporated additional functionality such as You-Tube compatible on-line video feeds, audio and visual collaboration with peers via web-messaging in order to meet the needs of learning disabled students and make their learning process more effective. In this chapter, the authors focus on recent advances in the development of remote experimentation labs in the context of engineering education with an emphasis on general technological issues and specific experiments offered. Systematic evaluation of educational benefits derived from using these labs will also be presented.

Supports for and Barriers to Implementing Assistive Technology in Schools

This study examines practitioners’ perceptions of the factors impacting the implementation of assistive technology (AT) for students with disabilities in five public school divisions. Participants were five members of division-wide AT facilitation teams. Interview data indicated barriers including lack of stakeholder buy-in with a focus on administrative support. Important supports included the development and maintenance of relationships with instructional staff and technology coordinators. The ongoing need to build stakeholder awareness of and skill in implementing assistive technology was a common theme. Participants perceived that, if empowered to do so, an AT facilitation team can overcome existing barriers to implementation.