title: Upper Body-Based Power Wheelchair Control Interface for Individuals With Tetraplegia.
abstract: Many power wheelchair control interfaces are not sufficient for individuals with severely limited upper limb mobility. The majority of controllers that do not rely on coordinated arm and hand movements provide users a limited vocabulary of commands and often do not take advantage of the user's residual motion. We developed a body-machine interface (BMI) that leverages the flexibility and customizability of redundant control by using high dimensional changes in shoulder kinematics to generate proportional control commands for a power wheelchair. In this study, three individuals with cervical spinal cord injuries were able to control a power wheelchair safely and accurately using only small shoulder movements. With the BMI, participants were able to achieve their desired trajectories and, after five sessions driving, were able to achieve smoothness that was similar to the smoothness with their current joystick. All participants were twice as slow using the BMI however improved with practice. Importantly, users were able to generalize training controlling a computer to driving a power wheelchair, and employed similar strategies when controlling both devices. Overall, this work suggests that the BMI can be an effective wheelchair control interface for individuals with high-level spinal cord injuries who have limited arm and hand control.
authors.forename: Elias B
authors.initials: EB
authors.lastname: Thorp
authors.forename: Farnaz
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Abdollahi
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Farshchiansadegh
authors.forename: Mei-Hua
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jessica P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Pedersen
authors.forename: Camilla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pierella
authors.forename: Elliot J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Roth
authors.forename: Ismael
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Seanez Gonzalez
authors.forename: Ferdinando A
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Mussa-Ivaldi
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000465:Algorithms; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011782:Quadriplegia / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D012782:Shoulder / Q000502:physiology; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000534:rehabilitation; D014910:Wheelchairs