Development of arm splint switches to control equipments for severely handicapped persons

摘要

Communication means is important for handicapped persons. Especially for patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis(ALS) or progressive muscular dystrophies(PMD), some communication devices are the only way to communicate with others and control equipments. But in these progressive neuro-muscular disorders, as the disease get worse, deformity and contracture of hand and finger reaches an advanced stage and it becomes hard to turn on switches. For those patients, we developed a switch device with arm splint structure as a fitting part. To fit patient's arm, we applied the 'principles of splint', i.e. functional position, arches of the hand, thumb opposition, and so on. With our 'arm splint switch', it became easier for patients of ALS, PMD or other advanced neuro-muscular disorders to manipulate switches.