People with motor disabilities have difficulty controlling their body movements, making it virtually impossible to speak or move voluntarily. A University of Toronto professor has developed a new technology using infrared cameras that allows people with such impairments to communicate.
Dung Le is a patient at Bloorview Kids Rehab with cerebral palsy who is unable to speak. His mother is able to translate his sounds, but he cannot communicate with anyone else. Professor Tom Chau, director of the clinical engineering program at U of T, has developed a technology that converts a camera screen image of Le’s face into a communication board that allows him to spell out letters.
“His only reliable movement was opening and closing his mouth. This is a hard movement to acknowledge,” Chau said. “We suspected we could detect the thermal radiation that is emitted when he opens his mouth with a camera.”
With the help of U of T PhD student Negar Memarian, Chau devised a system to help Dung communicate.
“When he opens his mouth there is a temperature difference between the inside of his mouth and the other areas of his face. You can see an image of the person’s face where the bright spots appear around his mouth. With the camera, we found his face, localized his mouth, and detected when the mouth region became warm—the brightest spot.”
This detection triggers a switch on a computer which starts to scan the alphabet. When Dung sees the letter that he wants, he opens and closes his mouth to select it. The first word that Dung typed out using this new technology was M-U-T-H-E-R, an acknowledgement to his mother, who had previously translated all his sounds.
This technology is a customized solution for a person with involuntary movements.
“A few other people have tried it, but it needs some tweaking for each individual, since each person’s temperature profile is different,” explained Chau.
The technology is extremely helpful to Dung, who is a business student, and no longer needs to rely on his mother for communication.
Memarian is completing her degree in biomedical engineering and played a large role in developing the technology. “This guy [Le] had a severe motor disability and so much intelligence,” she said.
Chau, who also holds the Canada Research Chair in paediatric rehab engineering, runs his lab out of Bloorview Kids Rehab. “In terms of impact,” he explained, “the greater the variety of solutions, the better. Each person’s ability is so unique that the larger the library of solutions, the more we have to offer.”
