DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTEGRATED TONGUE OPERATION ASSIST SYSTEM FOR SERIOUSLY DISABLED PEOPLE

People with muscular dystrophy or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) can move only their eyes, mouth and tongue as voluntarily, but their hands and fingers in order to operate even an electric Powered Wheelchair (PWC). In the more severe cases, disabled people can't speak, they have difficulty even in communication with caregivers. To control PWCs, chin control system, voice, head, and eye motion control systems are applied. The tools for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), transparent communication boards, speech generating devices are common. But each system has its own merits and demerits. We have tried to develop an Integrated Tongue Operation Assist System (I-to-AS) to control a "PWC" and an "AAC device". In this paper the specifications of the I-to-AS to control a "PWC" and to operate a "PC's mouse" to use it as an AAC device. Then we evaluated the effectiveness of this system.