Article

The Tongue Drive System (TDS) is a minimally invasive, wireless, and wearable
assistive technology (AT) that enables people with severe disabilities to control
their environments using tongue motion. TDS translates specific tongue gestures
into commands by sensing the magnetic field created by a small magnetic tracer
applied to the user's tongue. We have previously quantitatively evaluated the TDS
for accessing computers and powered wheelchairs, demonstrating its usability. In
this study, we focused on its qualitative evaluation by people with high-level
spinal cord injury who each received a magnetic tongue piercing and used the TDS
for 6 wk. We used two questionnaires, an after-scenario and a poststudy, designed
to evaluate the tongue-piercing experience and the TDS usability compared with
that of the sip-and-puff and the users' current ATs. After study completion, 73%
of the participants were positive about keeping the magnetic tongue-barbell in
order to use the TDS. All were satisfied with the TDS performance and most said
that they were able to do more things using TDS than their current ATs (4.22/5).

Langue : ANGLAIS