Disability and Rehabilitation-Assistive Technology最新文献

Aim: To co-design an online tool to facilitate child-led goal setting in collaboration with children, caregivers, and allied health professionals. Method: We used a co-design approach informed by human-centred design principles. Children with disabilities or developmental delays (n = 7), their caregivers (n = 7), and allied health professionals (n = 13) participated in iterative technology co-design sessions to contribute their ideas and feedback. Qualitative inductive content analysis was used to categorise, synthesise, and interpret data.

Results: Participants identified 10 key design consideration themes that informed online tool development: Facilitating a multi-phase goal setting process, Visual without being distracting, Supporting children's autonomy and choice, Supporting children's motivation and engagement, Collaborative functions, Flexible with personalisation, Scaffolding and support, Quick and easy to navigate, Multiple accessibility features, and Other clinical implementation considerations. The co-design process produced an early version of the online tool, called MyGOALS4Kids.

Interpretation: MyGOALS4Kids aims to support children's active participation and autonomy in eliciting, constructing, addressing, and evaluating intervention goals. The co-design process ensured that multiple perspectives were integrated into design, enhancing the tool's potential relevance and applicability in child-led goal setting practices. The key design considerations can inform future child-led technology developments. Further research is needed to investigate usability of MyGOALS4Kids in clinical settings.

Objective: People with physical disabilities can use electronic assistive technologies in their homes to increase their independence. These technologies range from disability specific environmental controls systems to mainstream smart home technologies and combinations of both. The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of persons with physical disabilities on their experiences using these technologies in their homes to inform future best practice.

Methods: This qualitative descriptive study used a World Café method underpinned by appreciative inquiry. Nine participants with spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy or acquired brain injury participated in four World Café discussions. Inductive thematic analysis was used to analyse verbatim transcriptions.

Results: Five themes were identified: "Using Mainstream Technology", "Navigating Person-Technology Fit Amidst Change", "Making Technology Work in the Home", "Positive Impacts of Technology", and "Frustrations with Using Technology in the Home". These themes supported expected benefits and challenges. In addition, the opportunities provided by mainstream technology in terms of availability and affordability, funding frustrations and poor trust of suppliers were described. Making technology work required support as well as technological safeguards.

Impact: Mainstream technology has improved and broadened possibilities for electronic assistive technology use in the home, which can be complex. It provides psychosocial benefits, but is also frustrating. Furthermore, using technology is a dynamic evolving journey as individual users must navigate changes in search of best person-technology fit. Successful use of technology requires support, as well as backup systems and safeguards to combat poor reliability.

People without sensory impairments may find it challenging to communicate effectively with those who have hearing or visual impairments. Further, hearing-impaired and visually impaired people are not interested in maintaining interpersonal relationships with others due to the difficulty in communicating. As a result, considerable research has been conducted to find an innovative way that make the process of communication easier for them. To overcome the weaknesses and shortcomings of these studies, the authors introduce a unique application. Our application model focuses on developing a virtual instrument that recognises hand gestures, displays a corresponding message, and provides a voice message to assist people with hearing or visual impairments in communication. A flex sensor glove was used for hand gesture detection, and a virtual instrumentation system was developed using LabVIEW software. Ten volunteers with no previous disabilities were initially used to test the system. Seven gestures were selected for the initial evaluation, and each gesture was performed five times, completing a total of 350 trials. The selected seven hand gestures for the initial evaluation were successfully communicated through both audio and visual means by providing them in all three languages: Sinhala, Tamil, and English. Furthermore, our system achieved a gesture detection accuracy of 95.42%, with an average response time of less than 0.5 s per gesture. This system is highly beneficial for people with congenital or early-stage hearing loss and visually impaired people who are confined to beds due to illness.

Purpose: To explore the user experience of neuromuscular patients engaging with virtual reality.

Materials and methods: In this observational study, patients aged 16 and older, with a clinical and/or genetic diagnosis of neuromuscular disease, underwent a recreational VR experience. The virtual reality activity consisted of using Tripp^® application during hospitalisation using Oculus Quest 2^®. Subsequently, they completed a set of questionnaires assessing technology acceptance, cybersickness, and flow state, defined as the level of engagement during an activity.

Results: Fifty-nine patients reported low levels of cybersickness and high levels of flow state. A significant positive correlation was found between user experience and flow state, while no significant relationship was observed between technology acceptance and cybersickness.

Discussion: Overall, this research highlights the feasibility of virtual reality as an acceptable tool in the neuromuscular population providing insights into the technology's application in clinical settings.

Purpose: Parents and teachers of individuals with disabilities have a critical role in the effectiveness of students' assistive technology (AT) services. However, research on their perceptions of AT and satisfaction with it is limited. The current study fills this gap by exploring the importance and performance of AT services as perceived by parents and teachers of individuals with disabilities, also examining the differences between their perceptions.

Materials and methods: Participants in this study included parents and teachers of children with disabilities. The data were collected using a quantitative research method and a questionnaire administered to 196 teachers and 204 parents. Descriptive statistics and importance of performance analysis were used to analyse the data.

Results: (1) Among parents, the perceived performance of AT services generally exceeded their perceived importance on the overall scale, except for the "application procedures" dimension, where perceived importance outweighed perceived performance. The opposite trend was observed for teachers: perceived importance surpassed perceived performance on the overall scale, except for the "application procedures" dimension, where perceived performance exceeded perceived importance. (2) Both parents and teachers considered the "application procedures" dimension important. However, their satisfaction levels differed: Parents found this dimension unsatisfactory. Teachers, in contrast, found it satisfactory. (3) Five specific service items were identified as requiring prioritisation for improvement: "total hours of service received," "scheduled time slots," "designated locations," "AT device applicability," and "transition program services."

Conclusion: The paper presents suggestions for enhancing AT services based on these findings.

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the effects of a half-sloped (HS) seat surface as a new approach to seating on individuals with cerebral palsy.

Materials and methods: Eight adults with cerebral palsy, with a mean age of 35.88 ± 6.08 years, were enrolled in this study to compare their seating postures and upper limb function between both a standard seat and an HS seat. Measurements included pelvic tilt angle, hip joint angle, thoracic flexion angle, craniovertebral angle and upper limb function test as Simple Test for Evaluating Hand Function (STEF) scores.

Result: The HS seat resulted in an increase in the flexion angle of the thoracic spine by 17.37°, an increase in displacement by 4.07% and a reduction in forward head posture by 14.00°. Additionally, the STEF scores on both hands improved by 14.00 points. The results of this study suggest that the HS seat might improve sitting posture and upper extremity function in individuals with cerebral palsy.

Conclusion: The HS seat might contribute to improving the quality of life in these individuals by promoting pelvic stability and maintaining the physiological curvature of the spine. Further large-scale studies and long-term follow-up are needed to validate the clinical efficacy of the HS seat.

Purpose: Our primary objective was to assess wheelchair service providers' opinions on manual wheelchair-skills courses ("bootcamps"). Our secondary objective was to test the hypothesis that these courses enhance the learners' self-reported capacity and confidence.

Materials and methods: This was an observational study that took place in rehabilitation and conference centers on 407 wheelchair service providers each of whom took part in one of 26 practical workshops on manual wheelchair skills at least 1 day in duration. Post-course, all participants completed a Course Evaluation Form with ordinal (1-5), categorical, and free-response questions. A subset of 103 participants also completed a modified Wheelchair Skills Test Questionnaire (WST-Q) of "capacity" and "confidence".

Results: The percentages of participants who answered 5 ("extremely so") to the questions "useful?", "relevant?", "well-tolerated?", "understandable?", and "enjoyable?" were 94.1, 90.4, 92.6, 95.6, and 97.3%. The median for the Overall Satisfaction Score (OSS) (1-5) of the 26 bootcamps was 4.96. Most participants (87.1%) considered the course "just right" in duration, and (100%) stated that they would recommend the Course to others. There were numerous qualitative comments about the course content, as well as what participants found most and least useful. Over half of the WST-Q respondents reported improvements in capacity and confidence in 26 (90.0%) and 25 (86.2%) of individual skills.

Conclusions: Although there is room for improvement, wheelchair service providers were generally positive about in-person courses, and the courses enhance wheelchair-skills capacity and confidence.

Purpose: This study examined screen time patterns and contextual factors in Italian children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDs), and explored whether parental screen use and stress predicted child screen exposure.

Materials and methods: An online survey was distributed to families of children with NDs (e.g., intellectual disability, genetic syndromes, autism and learning disabilities). The survey collected socio-demographic information, measures of screen time for both children and parents, and parental stress.

Results: Data from 352 families covering 407 children revealed that many children exceeded recommended screen time limits. More older children than younger children were in the higher use categories, while relatively similar patterns emerged across sex, diagnostic groups and levels of functional disability. Television was the most frequently used device, while about half used smartphones. Watching videos and cartoons, often alone, was the most common screen activity, with rehabilitative use reported by few. Difficulties in disengaging from screens were more common among older participants and those with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Most parents reported less than one hour of non-work-related screen use per day. However, greater parental loss of control over screen use was linked to higher parental screen time, which, in turn, predicted increased screen use in children. Parental stress was also directly associated with higher child screen time.

Conclusions: The findings highlight the importance of tailored, developmentally appropriate screen time guidelines for children with NDs. Clinicians and rehabilitation therapists can support caregivers in making informed choices about digital media use, promoting positive digital engagement while minimising potential risks.

Objective: This study presents a low-cost assistive navigation system combining a Smart Blind Stick and Smart Glasses to improve mobility safety and independence for blind and visually impaired (BVI) users through multi-level obstacle sensing, emergency alerts, and smart home integration.

Methods: A dual-node architecture was developed using ESP32-based modules integrated into a stick and glasses. The stick provides lower-body obstacle detection and includes an emergency panic switch, while the glasses provide upper-body obstacle detection. Both nodes generate audio alerts via a DFPlayer Mini and speaker and additionally transmit Bluetooth messages to a smartphone terminal application, enabling TalkBack-based voice output as a redundant feedback channel. The system also supports SMTP-based emergency email alerts and indoor smart home control using relay switching. A preliminary pilot evaluation was conducted in both indoor and outdoor environments to assess functional reliability and collect initial usability feedback.

Results: The prototype demonstrated reliable obstacle detection and audio feedback across different distances and environments. Emergency panic alerts and smart home control functions were successfully triggered during repeated trials, confirming stable operation of the integrated communication and control features. Participant feedback indicated improved perceived safety, confidence, and usefulness compared to traditional single-device approaches.

Conclusion: The proposed Smart Blind Stick and Glasses system offers an affordable, redundant, and modular assistive technology solution with multi-level sensing, dual-mode audio feedback, emergency notification capability, and smart home integration. The findings support feasibility for real-world use and motivate future work involving expanded user studies and advanced sensing/AI-based upgrades.