DA-IICT students see help’s ‘at hand’ for cerebral palsy patients

01-25-2007

Ahmedabad, January 24: It’s like any ordinary wristband that people would sport but a closer look at the prototype shows an embedded system that does tasks like switching on a computer or a television.

Aimed at making life a little easier for patients suffering from cerebral palsy, the device has been designed by two students of the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DA-IICT).

The wristband is part of the design project of Pallavi Daggumati and Ramya Reddy, B Tech students in their fourth semester. The device, a wristband for the patients will be low cost, light weight and portable so that the patient is comfortable while operating the same.

The wristband will have an embedded system within it which will take into account the slight movement of the hands made by the patients. The device will operate according to the angle made by the hand, giving a signal to a computer or a television to get switched on or off. It will have some components of another device designed by DA-IICT students called a ‘wireless mouse’.

The mouse is so designed that a computer can be operated without the person having to be near it. The mouse has a sensor and is connected to a USB port which has a receiver. The mouse helps to change slides of a presentation depending on angles made by the hand.

Prabhat Ranjan, professor at DA-IICT under whom the project is being done. says, “One needs to decipher the correct angles of the hand of the patient suffering from cerebral palsy if the device is to be tried out.

The reason for this is the lack of movements of their fingers because of which any fine movement needs to be measured.” Talking on her project, Daggumati says, “I and my friend visited several rehabilitation homes for patients suffering from cerebral palsy in Hyderabad and Chennai.

However, we concentrated on the case of a 17-year-old girl in a Chennai rehabilitation home. We got the idea to design the device based on equipment used by the girl which included an infrared mouse and touch pads to operate remote-controlled devices like television.”

She adds, “However we realised that the touchpad which was like a switch could either control the programmes or the volume of the television, meaning it could only have one function. We on the other hand intend to design a device which can be used as a multiple input switch which can have several functions.”

The duo are also in the process of designing a Voice Decoder for cerebral palsy patients. Daggumati says, “With the help of this device sounds made by the patients can be recorded and catalogued. When the patient makes a sound, it can be fed into the device which recognises the sound from its database, mapping the sound into an English word.” She adds, “We intend to make this device light weight which can be put on a patient’s wheelchair to communicate with others.”

Source:http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=219289

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