Open sesame from top of your head-an event related potential based interface for the control of the virtual reality system

Abstract

We proposed a new concept of medical care system, named the "hyper hospital" which is constructed in computer based electronic information network. It is built as a distributed system on the network and consists of all kinds of conventional medical care facilities in both the real and the imaginary spaces. The virtual space of the hyper hospital and private information are owned and exclusively controlled by the patient, thus the maximum protection of the privacy of the patients can be observed. In the hyper hospital, an innovative human interface must be required for the consultation, treatment and other communication to the medical staff. This is especially true if the users are of severely disabled patients. The purpose of the present study is to establish a new human interface based on the event related potential, which enables those kind of patients to communicate with others including medical care staffs without any physical actions.<>