Feasibility study for mouth operated control devices / Project completed

Photo: A man in a wheel chair - Prof. Sang-Mook Lee - communicates with the IntegraMouse Plus - a mouth controlled device by LIFEool

The United Nations estimate that there are a total of 650 million people with disabilities worldwide. The 2.6 million people in Europe alone suffer from impairments of their upper ex-tremities and about half of them, 1.3 million people use assistive technologies to cope with their daily lives. Their quality of life is decisively influenced by whether and in what form they get access to the physical and digital world. The digital world, in particular, plays a central role in this, as it enables the participation in our connected and smart world without restrictions.

Participation is crucial for people with disabilities: in the workplace as well as in social life in the family and in society. In view of the multitude of different forms of disabilities, a diverse world of assistive technologies is needed.

The IntegraMouse Plus from LIFEtool is such an assistive technology. With its help computers, laptops or mobile devices can only be operated with the mouth. Minimal lip movements are sufficient to move the mouse pointer. More than 3.000 people with a high degree of movement restrictions in 40 countries around the world use the internationally award-winning IntegraMouse Plus, which is certified as a medical device class 1 in the European union.

Aims

In order to meet the demands of a digitized, connected and smart world, we want to explore in this project the possibilities offered by a mouth operated control device for our users. Centrally, we are concerned with the question of where the limits of mouth  controlled operations are, and what possibilities are still plausible for the control of the mouth as well as other ac-tivities in everyday life, at work and in social relationships.

Results

A feasibility study is being conducted. In addition to a technical analysis, the commercial aspects are also examined.

  • Contact

    Stefan Schürz BSc
    Researcher
    T +43 664 235 17 43
    stefan.schuerz@lifetool.at

    Term

    01.12.2016 - 28.02.2017

  • Project Type

    National Project
  • Support Program

    Funded by European Union, program Horizon 2020