Brain damaged given a 'voice' from computer
BRAIN-DAMAGED people unable to speak or move are being given a voice using just the power of thought.
Dr Paul Gnanayutham, from the University of Portsmouth, has devised a system that connects a patient's brain waves to a computer.
This allows the person to point a computer cursor at simple words such as 'yes', 'no' and 'thank you'.
The system can also be used to turn on electrical appliances such as a television or a link to an internet page.
This simple but life-changing breakthrough is not the first time scientists have found a way of using a person's brain waves to navigate a cursor.
But Dr Gnanayutham's system is one of the first to be used on real people with serious brain injuries, rather than confined to a laboratory and tested on the able-bodied.
He said: 'I worked with traumatic brain-injured participants who were paraplegics, non-verbal and tube-fed to give them a voice and the ability to say yes or no on a computer screen by using their brainwaves.'
The system works by attaching probes on an Alice band worn around the head picking up brain waves, muscles and eye movements signals at the forehead.
All that is now needed is funding to turn the prototype into a product that can be bought from a shop shelf and used without expert help.
'Hospital staff look after these people – they feed them, wash them, shave them and so on but they do not have a voice,' added Dr Gnanayutham, pictured, a computer researcher at the university.
'They have no way of saying "Don't turn off the lights please because I want to stay awake for another hour", or "No, I don't want visitors today".
'I have been thanked by parents and the husbands or wives of some people I have helped to whom a simple "yes" or "no" is the first conversation they have had with their loved one in years.'
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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