Comparison of Simple Communication Aids between Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Patients and Caregivers

Abstract

Pages 37-43 37 www.ijntr.org  Abstract-Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neuromuscular disease in which muscle strength and motor function decrease with the progress of the disease. As the decreased motor function is associated with poorer communication abilities in ALS patients, supporting methods are needed to enable better communication according to their residual capacity. The purpose of this study was to evaluate and compare features of the "transparent character board" and the "mouth-shape character", which are simple communication methods for patients with ALS and other diseases in which patients have difficulty in speaking or writing. Healthy subjects role-played the patient (the patient's role) and the caregiver (the caregiver`s role). The trials were conducted to express the intention of the patient using Hiragana characters (The Japanese alphabet) to the caregiver using 3 communication aids: a "transparent character board", the "mouth-shape characters" method, and an "electronic character boards" with voice output set as the control. Each trial was recorded with an eye-tracking device worn by the caregiver and a video camera, and the communication process was measured. The transparent character board communication requires the board as a tool. This method can be used for speedy communication if the environment allows the patient and caregiver to spend much time learning the operation process. The mouth-shape character method requires no tools for communication. The ease of the method makes it applicable even when the relationship between the patient and caregiver is not so long.

Development of a Support System for Voice Outputs and Character Recordings in Communication via the “Mouth-shape Character” Method

“…A control experiment was performed using the conventional mouth-shape character method and these results were compared. The experimental method was set based on a previous study [10]. Ten combinations of Hiragana characters, consisting of 3 characters that are not found in usual Japanese words, were created, and the order of appearance of the combinations was randomized.…”

“…Meanwhile, examples of low technology communication support [7] include the transparent character board [8] and the mouth-shape character [9]. We compared the characteristics of communication via the transparent character board method and the mouth-shape character method [10]. While the mouth-shape character method requires no tools and is capable of communicating in a simple manner, the burden on the caregiver is large, and it is the caregiver's task to utter the speech sound and record the "confirmed" characters.…”