STORM - NEUROSWITCH ORIGINAL - SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Storm was diagnosed with athetoid Cerebral palsy and has effective quadriplegia and inability to speak. Her family and therapists describe her as very smart (having taught herself to read and do arithmetic by the age of eight). She can walk with a Hart Walker and can operate a head switch with about 40% accuracy.
Storm's Dad, Mark, found Control Bionics on the internet and emailed the company in Washington DC.
Control Bionics founder Peter Shann Ford has undertaken to assess and install the first twenty NeuroSwitch Originals anywhere on Earth. On 28th July, 2004 he flew to Sydney to assess Storm and a number of her classmates at the Kogarah School.
The assessments follow a specific protocol to locate the best EMG site for each person, and then let them run NeuroSwitch AT in test mode to see if they like it. A number of students at the school were assessed, with parents and therapists In September he returned to Australia to install Storm's edition of NeuroSwitch System, including her NeuroSwitch Communicator which now runs with voice modules recorded by Storm's mother, Susan.
Storm is also working with NeuroSwitch to operate other Assistive Technology (AT), a Macaw scanning technology communicator, which she previously used with a head switch with limited success. NeuroSwitch is enabling Storm to operate her AT with far more accuracy and responsiveness.
T
he NeuroSwitch System has opened up new opportunities for Storm to communicate and control other technology - beginning with her Macaw Assistive Technology communicator.
She has already begun working with NeuroSwitch Ricochet - the training simulator designed to practise the skills needed to safely and effectively control a powered wheelchair using nerve signals. Those same skills will enable a user to also operate environmental controls and robotic devices such as door openers and robotic arms which will be able to grasp and move things such as drinking and eating utensils, using predominantly existing hardware and devices in innovative ways with this new technology.
