Clinical trial shows quadriplegics can operate powered wheelchair with tongue dr...( An assistive technology that enables...)

An assistive technology that enables individuals to maneuver a powered wheelchair or control a mouse cursor using simple tongue movements can be operated by individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries, according to the results of a recently completed clinical trial.

"This clinical trial has validated that the Tongue Drive system is intuitive and quite simple for individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries to use," said Maysam Ghovanloo, an assistant professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. "Trial participants were able to easily remember and correctly issue tongue commands to play computer games and drive a powered wheelchair around an obstacle course with very little prior training."

At the annual conference of the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA) on June 26, the researchers reported the results of the first five clinical trial subjects to use the Tongue Drive system. The trial was conducted at the Shepherd Center, an Atlanta-based catastrophic care hospital, and funded by the National Science Foundation and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation.

The clinical trial tested the ability of these individuals with tetraplegia, as a result of high-level spinal cord injuries (cervical vertebrae C3-C5), to perform tasks related to computer access and wheelchair navigation -- using only their tongue movements.

At the beginning of each trial, Ghovanloo and graduate students Xueliang Huo and Chih-wen Cheng attached a small magnet -- the size of a grain of rice -- to the participant's tongue with tissue adhesive. Movement of this magnetic tracer was detected by an array of magnetic field sensors mounted on wireless headphones worn by the subject. The sensor output signals were wirelessly transmitted to a portable computer, which was carried on the wheelchair.

The signals were processed to determin
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