Purpose. To review current measurement approaches to activity and participation among wheeled mobility users and suggest key factors researchers should consider as they continue to develop and refine both the concept of participation and its measurement. Methods. Literature review and expert opinion. Results. Four issues are reviewed: (1) Participation as a concept and as a key domain of the re...

This paper presents a general decision theoretic model of interactions between users and cognitive assistive technologies for various tasks of importance to the elderly population. The model is a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) whose goal is to work in conjunction with a user towards the completion of a given activity or task. This requires the model to monitor and assist t...

Millions of people all over the world have problems with their upper limbs and often depend on Assistive Technologies for accomplishing their daily life activities. From the wide spectrum of Assistive devices found in the market only few of them are flexible enough to adapt according to the changing needs of the patient. The AsTeRICS EC-funded project aims to provide a flexible and affordable c...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a progressive neurologic disease clinically characterized by episodes of focal disorder of the cranial nerves, spinal cord, and the brain. MS affects a significant number of young adults, and they most often face a future of progressive functional losses as more of their central nervous system and cranial nerves are affected. As the disease progresses, they have new i...

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how assistive technology can be incorporated into computer science as a valid method of demonstrating basic computer science principles, human-computer interaction methods, and social, legal, and ethical issues in computing.

Wheelchair durability and maintenance condition are key factors of wheelchair function. Durability studies done with double drum and drop testers, although valuable, do not perfectly imitate conditions of use. Durability may be harvested from clinical records; however, these may be inconsistent because protocols for recording information differ from place to place. Wheelchair professionals with...

Ambient assistive technology (AAT) is envisioned as a powerful tool for facing the growing demands the demographic change toward an aging society puts on care. While AAT is often expected to increase the quality of life of older people, this paper holds that relevant interventions often embody values that can contradict such visions, and in some cases even be harmful to care receivers. We argue...

Purpose: With the advent of Bluetooth technology, many of the assistive listening devices for hearing have become manufacturer specific, with little objective information about the performance provided. Method: Thirty native English-speaking adults (mean age 29.8) with normal hearing were tested pseudorandomly with two major hearing aid manufacturers’ proprietary Bluetooth connectivity devices ...

This article presents a novel AAC communication aid based on semantic rather than syntactic schema, leading to more natural message construction. Users interact with a two-dimensional spatially organized image schema, which depicts the semantic structure and contents of the message. An overview of the interface design is presented followed by discussion of its implications and limitations. Pote...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this review is to answer the following question: Does assistive technology contribute to social inclusion for people with intellectual disability? Previous research on assistive technology has focused on socioeconomic impacts such as education, employment and access to healthcare by people with intellectual disability. There is a need to consolidate evidence on the inter...