assessment of the involuntary motion of children with motor impairments to improve the accessibility of an inertial interface
The computer is considered a very useful tool for physical and cognitive rehabilitation. However, people with disabilities have limitations to control properly conventional user interfaces because of their motor diseases. This paper is in the framework of a project to create an alternative computer interface, especially addressed to children with Cerebral Palsy (CP). The interface is a head mouse based on inertial technology. Although the inertial interface succeeds as mouse pointer for healthy users, children with CP have involuntary movements, such as spasms or tremor, which limit the control. In this paper, the inertial interface is used to analyze the pathological patterns of three children with CP (hypertonic-athetoid, hypertonic-dystonic and hypotonic-athetoid cases) in terms of kinematic parameters and spectral analysis of the pathological motion. Finally, two filtering techniques are designed and evaluated to reduce the effects of the involuntary motion and improve the accessibility of the interface as mouse pointer.
inertial interface rehabilitation cerebral palsy involuntary movements