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Wearable Sensor to Help ALS Patients Communicate, Measuring Face Movements
A research team from MIT has just designed a wearable silicone sensor to help ALS patients communicate. Read more to find out.
Science & Tech
A team from MIT has come up with a transparent design that ables ALS patients to communicate a variety of sentiments, such as “I love you” or “I’m hungry.” The device, attached to the patient's face measures small face movements; twitching, smiling, and opening the mouth.
ALS patients have this hinder going on about their lives. They gradually lose their ability to control their muscles over time. And in the worst-case scenarios, they end up losing their ability to speak.
The device has been tested on two ALS patients; one female and one male. So it's not one of those researches to conclude their results based on a male candidate and proves to be obsolete, as the device itself is.
The research team's leader, Canan Dagdeviren, has had her inspiration after meeting Stephen Hawking, who had also been suffering from ALS for a long time, in 2016. When he visited Harvard University at that time, Dagdeviren was a junior at Harvard’s Society of Fellows.