Technology can help paralysis patients use tablets

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Patients with paralysis could one day use a smartphone or tablet just thinking about what they wanted to do with sensors implanted in their brains, according to a recent study.

Jamie Henderson of the Stanford University School of Medicine in California said previous experiments had made it possible to use brain sensors connected to modified computers to help paralysis patients write up to eight words per week. minute. Tablets and smartphones without any particular modification.

"We may still have years to get a device that can be set up and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration so that it is available for widespread use," Henderson said in an e-mail. But I am convinced that most of the technological obstacles have been removed and we will see in the near future aids that allow paralyzed people to control a computer using only their ideas. "

The trial included only three patients, two with weak legs or unable to move their arms and legs due to anorexia, while the third was paralyzed as a result of an injury to spine.

Scientists have installed devices the size of an aspirin in a region of the brain called the motor cortex, responsible for planning and conducting voluntary movements.

The purpose of the device is to monitor the signals associated with the desired movements and then transfer them to a Bluetooth enabled device designed to function as a mouse computer connected to a wireless computer. Google Nexus 9 is not entered by scientists to modify it.

Using the wireless sensor and mouse, participants in the experiment were able to navigate through popular programs on the Tablet PC, including e-mail, chat, music, and video.

It also allows patients to send messages to their relatives, friends, and members of the research team, as well as to other people. Participants also entered the Internet, checked the weather and made electronic purchases.

One of the patients played the piano and managed to play a piece of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

"The participants were able to perform up to 22 trigger tasks and push up to the minute using different applications," the researchers wrote in the journal PlusOne.

For text applications, participants could write up to 30 characters per minute.

The experiment was conducted by a team of doctors, scientists and engineers. The team previously indicated that the device used in the current experiment could allow people to move the arms of the mechanism or regain control of the limbs, despite loss of mobility due to injury or illness.

"The peculiarity of the experience is that it does not require any modification of tablets, but can be applied to the same devices as healthy people," said Steven Chase, deputy director of neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

"This means that it will not be necessary to design special software for users of these devices, which greatly increases the number of applications that these patients will be able to treat," said Chase did not participate in the experiment.