Project Details

Background 

• Cerebral Palsy (CP) is the most common neurological condition affecting children. 
• It is caused by early brain damage and can result in issues in movement execution, planning and sensing.  
• One common consequence is hemiparesis, where one hand, called "assisting hand”, is particularly affected. Children struggle with awareness and use of the assisting hand. 
• This makes it difficult for children to conduct daily life activities such as tying shoelaces or holding big objects, which are difficult to perform with only their preferred hand 
• To improve their awareness of the assisting hand and motivate its use, parents and therapists use resources like touch, sounds, and verbal encouragement.  

 

Objective  

Inspired by how parents and therapists use sensory feedback to help encourage the use of the assisting hand, we want to develop toys and wearables with multisensory feedback (audio, vision and touch) to assist children of ages 1 to 5 years old with cerebral palsy to use their assisting hand in daily activities. 

We will build wearable and wireless bracelets using different sensory feedback for children to use their assisting hand in a gamified approach.  The bracelet will use soft materials to ensure it is comfortable and children can play and wear it all day long.

An app for a phone or tablet will also be developed to interact with the system. Our system will include two main modes: practicing the assisting arm awareness and rewarding its use. (1) In awareness mode, the parents can trigger sensory signals in the bracelet to direct the children's attention towards their assisting arm. (2) In the reward mode will offer two possibilities:  

• The bracelet will respond to arm motion to encourage its use (ideal for younger children, from 1 to 3 years old) 
• The bracelet will connect to the app to train the assisting hand during fun and interactive video games, where the hand motion controls an on-screen character (ideal for older children, from 3 to 5 years old) 

 

Previous work 

• We developed various prototypes, each integrating one sensory modality  
• We hosted a workshop with children with CP aged 1 to 3 and their parents to get feedback on the engagement and usability of the designed interactive devices 
• Each feedback modality was used independently to understand its effect on the child’s attention and behaviour 
• Haptic feedback seemed more effective at drawing the child’s awareness to their assisting arm and was preferred by the parents 
• Children enjoyed visual and audio cues when it was used as a reward mechanism for their hand’s use 
• Families were excited about the idea of such interactive bracelets/toys with sensory feedback 
• The toy’s design should be optimised for increased wearability, flexibility and comfort for children aged 1-5 since during the feasibility study, the prototypes were powered via wire and the components were contained in rigid cases placed on the wrist with velcro. 

Now we want to develop a multisensory wearable for children with CP to raise awareness, assist them in daily tasks and use their hand in a fun gaming environment 

 

Specifications 

 Functional specifications 

• Awareness 
  • Helps drawing the attention of the child to their assisting hand and encourages them to use it in their daily activities 
  • Parents can press a button on the app to send a signal to the child’s bracelet to provide sensory feedback when they notice their child is not using their hand  
• Reward 
  • Assisting children in the use of the assisting hand with enhanced sensory feedback 
  • Embedded reward system with audio and haptic feedback, based on intensity of motion reded by IMU 

• Game reward 
  • Encouraging children to use their assisting hand by providing a fun and interactive environment with visual on-screen feedback and embedded haptic and audio feedback 
  • App on a tablet/phone with Mario Bros. Game  
  • Control of game character with child’s motion, detected by IMU  
  • Calibration of the game and game difficulty adapted based on abilities 

• Digital health metrics  
  • Keeping track of the children’s progress and improvements over time to support families in their child’s journey  
  • Quantification of motion of the assisting hand based on IMU levels 
  • Suggesting exercise and training based on children’s abilities from improvement trends  

• Collaborative play  
  • Encouraging children in using their assisting arm in a social environment where they interact with other children or their parent  
  • Kit with two bracelets for multi-player games and interactions between users, via collaborative game control, feedback exchange, etc.  
  • Child-parent or child-child configurations as well as bimanual configurations to assist in activities requiring the coordinated use of both arms 

Feedback modalities  

• Haptic: vibration motors 
  • 3 levels: breeze💨, shaking💃, earthquake🌍 

• Audio: audio speakers 
  • 3 levels: whispering, bird singing🦜, rock concert 🔈 

• Visual:  
  • all around the bracelet with 8 colours 
  • 3 levels: traffic light 🚦, lightsaber duel ⚔️, disco 🕺

Technical specifications  

• 1 x Arduino nano 33 IOT 
• Speakers 
• Button vibrotactile actuators 
• LEDs 
• Adjustable soft bracelet with cute animal designs 
• Tablet with bluetooth for game display