Researchers proposed a wearable
system that allows paralyzed people to navigate their worlds with just flicks
of their pierced tongues. The technology, still under development, could help
patients disabled from the neck down access their worlds with far greater ease
and access than current assistive systems offer – and with a tongue piercing,
to boot. The Tongue Drive System (TDS) works like this: a magnetic tongue stud
relays the wearer’s tongue movements to a headset, which then sends the
commands to a smartphone or another WiFi-connected device. The user can control
almost anything that a smartphone can – and a smartphone can do a lot,
including drive a wheelchair, surf the web, and adjust the thermostat.
TDS is just one of a new crop of
innovative assistive technologies for paralyzed patients, along with equipment
that tracks eye movements, responds to voice commands, or follows neck
movements. Still, these systems have distinct limitations: the neck can tire
from prolonged use, background noise muddles voice commands, and eye-tracking
headsets are cumbersome. Electrodes implanted in the brain have produced some
good results, but they require brain surgery. In their lab tests, researchers
compared TDS to one popular assistive system known as sip-and-puff. Users of
that system sip or puff air into a straw connected to their wheelchair. The
airflow relays commands that move the chair either forward or backward, or to
either side.
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