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Assistive Technologies to Support Communication with Neuro-motor Disabled Patients

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Recent Advances in Intelligent Assistive Technologies: Paradigms and Applications

Part of the book series: Intelligent Systems Reference Library ((ISRL,volume 170))

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Abstract

The paper describes the evolution in design and implementation of a new complex electro-informatics assistive medical system used for the communication with neuromotor disabled patients. These patients are severe handicapped persons who cannot interfere with real world by normal ways like speech, writing or language signs. Fortunately, these persons can see or can hear and they understand the meaning of different messages. The developed medical system is made by the following main functional components: the patient equipment, server, and caretaker device, connected together by using Internet available infrastructure. The bidirectional communication is performed by using keywords technology or ideograms presented on the patient’s screen provided by an application running at the server and accessed by the patient through a web browser. Patient needs are performed by using for interfacing with a software application by using different types of sensors including switch-type sensors (tactile, pressure, strain gauge) or eye tracking devices, all of these adapted to the patient’s physical condition. The medical system has also a secondary function, the remote monitoring of few vital physiological parameters needed for patient treatment and rehabilitation, based on wireless and wearable sensor network, that share the same hardware platform. The application running on caretaker device displays the patient’s needs together with the values of the selected physiological parameters in real time. The medical devices are responsible for physiological parameters acquiring, preprocessing and forwarding into the server. The server performs the parameters processing and computing the medical condition of the patient and also has the ability of sending alerts to the caretaker when one or more parameters are outside the normal limits. The application running on server manages the system databases, the communication protocols between patient and caretaker devices, records and processes the remote monitored data values and alarms the caretaker devices in emergency situations. The prototype of the developed medical system has been successfully within Clinic of “Geriatrics and Gerontology” at “Dr. C. I. Parhon” Hospital of Iaşi, Romania. The assistive solution proposed can be used in hospitals, care and treatment centers, nursing homes and also for patients treated in outpatient settings. The system contributes to increasing the level of care and treatment for neuromotor disabled patients, lowering costs in health care system.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medical Bioengineering, Grigore T Popa University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iasi, Romania

    Cristian Rotariu & Hariton Costin

  2. Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology, Gheorghe Asachi Technical University, Iasi, Romania

    Radu Gabriel Bozomitu

  3. Institute of Computer Science of Romanian Academy, Iași Branch, Iasi, Romania

    Hariton Costin

Authors
  1. Cristian Rotariu
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  2. Radu Gabriel Bozomitu
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  3. Hariton Costin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cristian Rotariu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medical Bioengineering, University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Iași, Romania

    Hariton Costin

  2. University of Augsburg, Augsburg, Germany

    Björn Schuller

  3. Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers, University Polytechnica of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

    Adina Magda Florea

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Rotariu, C., Bozomitu, R.G., Costin, H. (2020). Assistive Technologies to Support Communication with Neuro-motor Disabled Patients. In: Costin, H., Schuller, B., Florea, A. (eds) Recent Advances in Intelligent Assistive Technologies: Paradigms and Applications. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, vol 170. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30817-9_2

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