Communicating effectively is one of the most daunting challenges that paralyzed individuals and their families face. Now, a group of researchers were able to invent a device that can help these patients to speak using only breathing signals.
The researchers from the Loughborough University designed what they call as the Augmentative and Alternate Communication (AAC) device to aid patients with full or partial cessation of voluntary muscular command and turn inabilities into the basis of the device's operative concept.
The device, which boasts its goal of restoring communication in severely paralyzed patients with speech loss problems, works through the help of pattern recognition software that converts analog data into digital data, as such the prototype data modify into breathing pattern arrangement and transform it into words. The converted words will then be read aloud by a tool that harmonizes the speech.
According to researchers Dr David Kerr and Dr Kaddour Bouazza-Marouf, the device picks up information from the patient and eventually develops more learnings as it is continually used. The patients are also empowered to control their manner of communication into something that is easy, effective and suitable for them. This means that they can add in their customized dialect and control the pace of the breathing signals. The team is looking at making a system where both the patient and the device learns and eventually develop an efficient set of vocabulary that is helpful to the patient, instead of the device, adds Kerr.
The success rate of the machine in terms of teaching it to identify sets of words is about 97.5 percent, scientists say. Other existing AAC machines are rather slow in performance and may range from being as simple as paper-based systems to as advanced as sophisticated electronic machines. With the new invention, the scientists emphasized that their device can perform at great speed due to the usage of analog signals in persistent medium thus, more data may be collated in a timely manner.
This machine could change the manner by which patients diagnosed with severely poor muscle control or other speech problems express and receive information, says Atul Gaur, anesthetist from the Glenfield Hospital, who is also part of the research.
