Assistive Technology Tools

Greenleaf Medical Systems has been using the DataGlove and DataSuit, originally developed by VPL Research, for measuring human motion. These devices measure changes in the light flowing through fiber optic cables to record movements in 3-D. Application development areas include measuring upper-extremity motion (useful, for instance, for studying Repetitive Strain Injury), allowing physically impaired individuals to perform complex actions by interpreting and converting simple hand gestures, and as a communication device linked to a voice synthesis system [25,24,23].

The Rehabilitation Service of San Raffaele Hospital, in Milan, Italy is using virtual environments to address the problem of patients who have difficulty maintaining a sense of balance. The sense of balance results from information gathered from three sensory systems: visual, labyrinthic (inner ear) and proprioceptive (awareness of posture). Patients suffering from ataxia may have poor proprioceptive cues; in this case, they may become over-dependent on visual cues for maintaining balance. This is unfortunate, since visual cues do not carry full-body information, and because reaction to visual information is relatively slow (upwards of 100 milliseconds). The Rehabilitation Service is investigating the possibility of training patients to be less dependent on visual cues by supplying ``bad'' visual cues in a virtual environment [50,51].

Stanford University [38,50] has been working on a ``Talking Glove'' which will convert hand movements by the non-vocal into speech-synthesized spoken words.

Burdea et al. [7] report on using a force-feedback glove to aid therapists in measuring hand motions. Similar work is reported on by Warner [82], although without force feedback.