VoiceActivated Living for Quadraplegia

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Voice-Activated Living for Quadraplegia

• By
• Brian Meyer and Theodore Nottage II

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Introduction Overview

• What is Spinal Cord Injury?
• Causes and Effects of SCI.
• Description of Environmental Control Unit.
• Voice Recognition Software.

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What is Spinal Cord Injury?

• Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) is damage to the spinal
  cord that results in loss of function such as
  mobility or feeling
• The spinal cord does not have to be severed for a
  loss of functioning to occur
• Most injuries occur with the spinal cord intact

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Causes of SCI

• Include
• -Vehicular Crashes
• -Falls
• -Violence (gunshots, etc.)
• -Sports (2/3 from diving)
• -Disease (polio, spina bifida, Freidrichs
  Ataxia)

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Statistics involving Quadraplegia

• Incidence- 40 cases per million population
  (11,000 new cases per year)
• Prevalence- between 721 and 906 per million
  (183,000 to 230,000 currently in US)
• Currently 81.6 are males (highest rate between
  16-30 year olds)
• 77.5 Cuacasian, 13.5 African-American, 5.7
  Hispanic, 2 American Indian, and 0.8 Asian

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More Facts and Figures on SCI

• Most frequent neurological category
• Quadraplegia
• Complete 17.5
• Incomplete 31.2
• Paraplegia
• Complete 28.2
• Incomlpete 23.1

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Severity of Injury and Cost

• 
  1st Year Subsequent
• Year
• High Tetraplegia (C1-C4) 572,178
  102,491
• Low Tetraplegia (C5-C8) 369,488
  41,983
• Paraplegia
  209,074 21,274
• Incomplete Motor Functional at 168,627
  11,817
• any Level

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Effects of Quadraplegia

• Lifestyle Changes
• Lengthy and recurrent hospitalisation
• Reduced mobility
• Greater dependency on others
• Involuntary control of bladder and bowel
• Different sex responses

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Effects of Quadraplegia

• Loss of all feeling, touch, pain and temperature
  sensations below T-1 vertebra
• Urinary tract infections
• Kidney and bladder stones
• Muscle spasms
• Formation of pressure sores
• Slow healing of paralyzed limb

• Impaired respiratory function (chest infections)
• Hyperflexia (elevation of blood pressure)
• Phlebitis (blood clot due to poor circulation)

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SCI Complete and Incomplete

• A complete injury means that there is no function
  below the level of the injury no sensation or
  voluntary movement
• An incomplete injury means that there is some
  function below the primary level of the injury

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Environmental Control (ECU)

• control in-home environment (TV, bed, lights and
  other things) entirely by voice
• The EC system is composed of  hardware and
  software from a number of sources
• desktop computer, voice recognition software, a
  number of sending and receiving units that emit
  or recognize infrared and other signals, and an
  EC software package that acts as the programmable
  interface linking all the other parts

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Example of ECU

• EC software allows you to program a page that
  enables a person to operate his bedroom TV
• All of the buttons necessary to control the
  cable TV system are laid out and named on the
  computer screen. Then the program is trained to
  equate each on-screen button with the associated
  infrared signal that would have been emitted by
  the TVs handheld remote control.

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Picture of TV Control Unit
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How ECU works

• use the persons voice recognition program to
  push the onscreen buttons
• if everything is working right, you can speak the
  word louder into the microphone, and the voice
  software will recognize that word, and search on
  screen for the text string louder.
• When it finds the word louder on a button, it
  will instruct an infrared emitter or IR blaster
  to send out the infrared signal that would have
  been sent if someone had pushed the TV remotes
  volume up button. 

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Components of ECU

• Needs the combination of
• Computer a desktop system and a laptop system
  that mounts onto a wheelchair
• High-Quality Microphone A good microphone is
  absolutely critical
• The mic is mounted on main controller bar and
  easily captures the persons voice while
  filtering out background noise

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Components of ECU

• Wireless microphone relay
• The signal from the microphone is converted
  into radio waves by a transmitter
• The airborne signal is picked up by a desktop
  receiver which feeds the sound into the computer
  as if the microphone were directly connected to
  it. In this way, the person can talk to the
  computer from anywhere in the house

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Components of ECU

• Most important components of ECU
• Voice recognition software and ECU software
• ECU software
• The software core of the EC system is a home
  control package that has been voice-enabled
• It acts as the programmable interface linking all
  the other parts

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Voice Recognition Software

• Allows the person to relay his voice to the ECU
  software and computer, triggering the appropriate
  command
• Putting all these pieces together, paralyzed
  people are able to control TVs, stereos, lights
  and the telephone wherever they go within their
  home

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Voice Recognition Software

• write documents by voice, draw, edit
  photographs, search and surf the net, download
  music and video files, make telephone calls
  without lifting the handset, and buy things

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Cost

• Voice Recognition Software 175-695
• Microphone 25-800
• Radiowave Reciever875
• Transmitter 350
• ECU software 450
• Complete In-Home Integration1000-4500

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Demonstration

• Voice Recognition Software using Visual Basic
• Created Voice Recognition codes using DirectSR1
• Commands open Notepad, open Media Player, and
  open Explorer