Assistive Technology News

CHALLENGES FOR ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY

By Gorka Eizmendi & Jose Miquel Azkoitia

In the XXI^{st century
Assistive Technology (AT) should be defined as a scientific and
technological approach to developing products and services oriented to
support elderly people and people with disabilities in their daily
activities, thereby maximizing their personal autonomy, independence,
health and quality of life.}

^{Assistive technology is,
therefore, an instrument for the improvement of the well being, full
social participation, and quality of life of people with disabilities,
their families and professionals involved in their care. The portfolio
of services and products within AT field includes a great diversity of
solutions, from prosthetics to accessibility in the work place.}

^{Which is the role of the Assistive Technology in the XXIst century?}

^{One of the main
challenges advanced societies are facing during the incoming years is
the increase in the aging population, that has a number of implications
related to disability and care issues. There is no doubt that aging
represents one of the hot topics in European policies; actually Europe
is the most aged population in the world along with Japan. The natural
association between aging and disability is evident, and the number of
people with disabilities is thus increasing as consequence of the
increased aging population.}

^{Overall, the advanced societies
will have to deal with a situation with high rates of a population over
60 years (25% in 2010), and, in consequence, a big number of people
with disabilities. According to statistics, it is estimated that the
percentage of people with some kind of disability in Europe is 11%, and
these numbers will presumably increase to 18% in 2020, mainly because
of the aging population. At the same time, while the population is
aging, the number of potential carers (formal or informal) will
decrease drastically.}

^{Acknowledging this scenario
means new tools are required for assuring the sustainability of
health-care system, and access to AT will be one of those fundamental
tools. Actually, AT plays a fundamental role in equalizing
opportunities and in improving the quality of life of people with
disabilities, since it provides solutions oriented to the
rehabilitation or compensation of functional abilities and helping in
the elimination of barriers in all kinds of environments. The
satisfactory use of these kinds of solutions enable a better
integration of people with disabilities into current society.}

^{Still an emerging field}

^{During the last
years, AT field has been involved in a great development, mainly
because of the technological revolution. Nowadays, there are better
solutions than 20, 10 or 5 years ago, and we foresee solutions that
were unimaginable some years ago, such as the neuroprosthetics for
urinary control in people with spinal cord injury or the cochlear
implant for people with hearing impairments. This development is
evident in "high tech" products (e-health, computer based systems…) and
also in traditional products as the wheelchair.}

^{However, despite the
technological development and the opportunity it opens, the situation
of AT field is not as desired and there is still a long way to go.}

^{As demonstrated by the study carried out by the EU Commission "Access to Assistive Technology in the European Union",
it is still an unstructured market with lack of transparency, that
exists in poor communication channels. As consequence, the end user of
AT products is dealing with lack of information when deciding about the
most suitable product to purchase. Additionally, AT assessment
processes still do not integrate the required interdisciplinary vision
and are carried out by single persons who, in most of the cases, do not
have the suitable education. This scenario leads to situations where
the provided solution is not the most suitable one from the integral
point of view, generating unsatisfactory and even delicate situations.}

^{However, despite the technological development, AT’s
have not developed much during the last 30 years. These products are
still mainly oriented to mobility, and the actual status does not
consider the epidemiologic trend, missing high prevalence disabilities
such as those related to neurodegenerative disorders (i.e. Alzheimer,
Parkinson’s..) Moreover, AT is not considered at all during prevention
and rehabilitation stages, which are as important as compensation.}

^{Future Perspectives: The Opportunities}

^{We are, therefore,
in a situation of necessity, but also in front of an opportunity. An
opportunity for creating a new economic scenario comparable to those
related to main sectors. An economic scenario which can be postulated
as the engine of the new society; taking advantage of the aging, the
so-called baby-boomers. The early baby-boomers are already over 60 and
will represent the most important social movement in advanced societies
during next 20 years, gathering for example the 50% of the American
purchase capacity.}

^{But this opportunity presents
challenges; challenges that we will have to face to take advantage of
the situation and to achieve the objectives, in terms of market volume
and in terms of quality of life. These challenges include:}

^{New Technologies:
technological development is moving forward and AT manufacturers need
to be aware of all new opportunities this development is raising.
Besides mechanics and electronics, also ambient intelligence, smart and
advance materials, nanoelectronics, biomechatronics and even bionics
can offer important options for suitable solutions for people with
disabilities and elderly people.}

^{Socio-Economic Issues: making Assistive technology products affordable to end users is definitely one of the big challenges for the incoming years.}

^{Universal design and its engagement with Assistive Technology:
Integrating Design for All philosophy in the development of regular
products and even AT products will speed up the integration process,
reducing the gap between context requirements and functional abilities
of people with disability.}

^{Evidence based Practice:
business opportunities for Assistive technology will only be realized
with a sound knowledge and understanding of the use of Assistive
Technology solutions in real practice.}

^{Ageing and disability:
Europe, as all other developed regions in the World, is facing a new
social challenge; population ageing. This issue will introduce new type
of needs and demands in terms of care, support and prevention that AT
will have to face.}

^{The next 9th European Conference
for the Advancement of Assistive Technology, which will be held 3-5
October in San Sebastián (Spain) will provide an opportunity to take a
good look at these main challenges that the Assistive Technology
community and society in general, will have to face in the next few
years.}

^{Gorka
Eizmendi is the Chairman of the AAATE07 Conference and the Project
Manager, Health Division – Fatronik and Jose Miguel Azkoitia is the}

^{Co-Chairman AAATE07 Conference, Scientific Manager}

^{Health Division – Fundación Fatronik. To respond to this column send an e-mail to}^{geizmendi@fatronik.com}^.

Seeing with Sounds, My Segue into Vision
by Pranav Lal

I want to introduce you to seeing with sound technology. It is "cool technology," a great enabler and has several practical applications.

As of today, there are a few applications that actively utilize seeing with sound. One exception is The vOICe, (http://www.seeingwithsound.com/) created by Dr. Peter B.L Meijer, the audio graphing calculator form
View Plus Technologies and Math Trax from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The vOICe (http://sharewareconnection.com/the-voice-learning-edition.htm) seeing-with-sound software translates images from a PC camera (webcam) into sounds that you hear via your stereo headphones, thus targeting vision substitution applications for the totally blind. Some blind people wear it daily with a wearable setup to "see" their environment as they go around, while other blind people (blind from birth) use it to experience for the very first time what vision is like.

My introduction to The vOICe came in early 2001. I had read e-mails on various mailing lists from Dr. Meijer regarding the software he had created. However, at that time, my impression was that I needed a webcam to use the software. That has actually never been the case. Around that time, I bought an Acer laptop since I needed it for B-school. The laptop came with a free webcam and this was the catalyst that spurred me on to trying The vOICe.

The first time that I plugged in the camera, I heard a meaningless jumble of sound. I decided to experiment. I had a cousin draw me two lines, one going from bottom to top and the other going from top to bottom. When I sonified those lines, I found that they looked the same. I learned my first important lesson. The vOICe, or for that matter an image, does not capture the motion of the pen. The two lines are effectively the same. In addition, this underscored the importance of learning the soundscape mapping.

The mapping refers to understanding what attributes of the soundscape match attributes of the object. Namely:

Whatever object is on your left you hear on your left, and similarly, whatever object is on your right you hear on your right.
The pitch represents height; therefore, the higher the pitch, the higher the object.
The volume represents brightness, such that the louder the sound, the brighter the object.

You may wonder how such a mapping translates into vision. The answer is all sensory input from any organ of the body is translated into electrical impulses. For example, once light hits the retina, it is translated into a series of electrical impulses and then relayed to the brain. Similarly, when you hear a particular bit of sound, that sound is converted into electrical impulses. The vOICe works on the principle of neural plasticity.

Neural plasticity refers to the ability of the human brain to reconfigure itself based on external stimuli. In people, who are visually impaired, the visual cortex gets utilized for other functions. However, when the brain receives the particular set of sounds that translate into suitable electrical impulses, it realizes that it is actually getting visual input. Never mind the fact that the input is from the ears. It knows that the most efficient way to process this visual input is to use the visual cortex since it has been designed for this purpose. Thus, the visual cortex gets re-recruited for visual functions.

You may ask if this happens, will you as a visually impaired person lose some of your abilities? In over five years of usage, I have not found this to be the case, nor has anyone else I know. We are still not sure what the precise mechanism of recruitment is though. There are a number of active projects that are working on neural plasticity.

Once I had mastered the mapping, I started to look around. I looked at doors, windows, tables, chairs, my computer and anything else that was in sight. At one point, I was tempted to memorize different sounds that an object would make. However, I realized the futility of this task. An object could be viewed from any angle that each time yields a different soundscape, and the best way to get input and learn how to see is to keep the mapping of the soundscape in mind. Trying to memorize objects and their sounds will be like memorizing how to do a particular set of problems in mathematics. The implication of this is that when one would be faced with a slightly different problem, one would not know how to do it since one has actually not learned the technique to solve that class of problems. The same applies to seeing with sound.

The vOICe gives you raw visual input that other systems do not. There is absolutely no attempt at description, and it is up to your brain to figure out what it is looking at. Another thing to be aware of is, not to equate vision to touch. They are completely different senses.

The primary advantage of the vOICe for me has been that it has allowed me to acquire remote sensing capabilities. So, no more groping along the wall. In addition, it has allowed me to perceive things that I could not easily perceive using touch such as curtains and screen doors. All this without any surgery and using off-the-shelf hardware.

The two main drawbacks of the vOICe are first, it has a frame rates of one frame per second, which is slow for mobility applications, and secondly, it does not allow the user to perceive light. However, this is not a significant issue since the mapping caters to providing information about the brightness of an object. We have barely begun to explore the possibilities of seeing with sound. As research on neural plasticity increases, more applications are expected to emerge. Seeing with sound can best be known experientially? Are you listening? To contact the writer write to: pranav.lal@gmail.com. The writer is an information security consultant for Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd.

The opinions expressed in this article are the writer's.

Independence Through Technology

Assistive Technology News

Home Page

Paralympic News

Guest Articles

Archived Stories