Nat Biomed Eng: Facial wearable sensors help patients with amyotrophy lateral sclerosis (ALS) communicate.

People with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have a gradual decline in their ability to control their muscles.
, they often lose the ability to speak and have difficulty communicating with others.
team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has now designed a retractable, skin-like device that can attach to a patient's face and measure small movements such as convulsions or smiles.
this method, patients can measure and interpret a variety of emotions, such as "I love you" or "I'm hungry."
the study was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
hope their new device will allow patients to communicate in a more natural way without having to deal with bulky devices.
the wearable sensor is thin and can be disguised with cosmetics to match any skin tone, making it unsoic.
"Our devices are not only stretchy, soft, disposable and lightweight, but also visually invisible," said Canan Dagdeviren, assistant professor of media arts and sciences at MIT and head of the research team.
"You can disguise it, and no one will think there's something on your skin."
researchers tested their initial version of the device on two patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (one female and one male, gender balance) and found that it accurately distinguished three different facial expressions - smile, open mouth and mouth. the system of the
Facial Coding Extratrol Sensor (cFaCES) outlines the modeling of equipment behavior during facial deformation because the ballast element converts mechanical energy into electrical energy, so the experimental voltage observed in the 3D-DIC test can be used to predict the expected strain of the DIC measurement of the surface deformation applied to the top surface of the sensor attached to the skin.
A map of contour lines based on skin strain without the need to overlay cFaCES on the skin, which helps guide the placement of cFaCES on the facial skin so that the strain observed by the four sensing elements is temporarily different for different movements.
of the sensor can be qualitatively selected by using an isostat graph of similar motion observed in the superimposed peak strain.
orange block indicates the potential position of the four sensing elements, which results in different strain observations on each component.
3D-DIC and theoretical models that predict and validate performance in cFaCES know that Hawking died in 2018 from slow-moving amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
he was able to communicate through an infrared sensor that could detect a twitch in his cheek and move the cursor across a row of letters.
, the process can be time-consuming and requires a large number of devices.
Integrated Decoding Group is Dagdeviren's laboratory, which specializes in the development of integrated (flexible and stretchable) electronic devices for a wide range of medical applications that can be attached to the human body.
met Stephen Hawking in 2016, she became interested in ways to help people with neuromuscular disease communicate.
Hawking visited Harvard University at the time, and Dagdeviren was a young member of the Harvard Fellows Association.
the device, which they created with four pyelectric sensors, all of which are easily mass-produced, the researchers estimate it will cost about $10 per device.
"We asked the subjects to do different things, and then we created a strain map for each part of the face."
"" then we look at our strain map to determine the correct strain level seen on the face of our device and determine that this is the right place to place the device for testing.
also used measurements of skin deformation to train machine learning algorithms to distinguish between smiling, opening mouths and mouths.
using the algorithm, they tested the device on two patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, with an accuracy of about 75 percent in distinguishing between these different movements.
were 87% accurate among healthy subjects.
these detectable facial movements, you can create a phrase or word library that corresponds to different combinations of motion.
can create customizable information based on your actions," says Dagdeviren, a 20-year-old computer player.
you can technically create thousands of pieces of information, which no other technology can do at the moment.
depends entirely on your library configuration, which can be designed for specific patients or groups of patients.
researchers have patented the technology and now plan to test it on other patients.
to help patients communicate, the device can also be used to track patients' progress or to measure the effectiveness of the treatment they receive, the researchers said.
: Sun, T., Tasnim, F., McIntosh, R.T. et al. Decoding of facial strains via conformable piezoelectric interfaces. Nat Biomed Eng, 2020 DOI: 10.1038/s41551-020-00612-wliangying Source: MedSci Original Copyright Notice: All notes on this website Source: Metz Medicine or Source: MedSci Originals Text, images and audio and video materials, copyrighted by Metz Medical, are not authorized, and may not be reproduced by any media, website or individual, and shall be reproduced with the words "Source: Mets Medicine".
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