AI Article Synopsis
- A high rate of upper body injuries among blind individuals highlights the limitations of traditional mobility aids like the white-cane, which often fail to detect waist-up obstacles.
- Researchers developed the EyeCane, a device providing haptic and auditory cues to help blind users identify and avoid obstacles above waist level, demonstrating its potential as a rehabilitation tool.
- After brief training, participants using the EyeCane showed improved obstacle detection and avoidance compared to the white-cane, indicating that the device could enhance mobility and safety for blind individuals.
Article Abstract
Background: One of the most stirring statistics in relation to the mobility of blind individuals is the high rate of upper body injuries, even when using the white-cane.
Objective: We here addressed a rehabilitation- oriented challenge of providing a reliable tool for blind people to avoid waist-up obstacles, namely one of the impediments to their successful mobility using currently available methods (e.g., white-cane).
Methods: We used the EyeCane, a device we developed which translates distances from several angles to haptic and auditory cues in an intuitive and unobtrusive manner, serving both as a primary and secondary mobility aid. We investigated the rehabilitation potential of such a device in facilitating visionless waist-up body protection.
Results: After ∼5 minutes of training with the EyeCane blind participants were able to successfully detect and avoid obstacles waist-high and up. This was significantly higher than their success when using the white-cane alone. As avoidance of obstacles required participants to perform an additional cognitive process after their detection, the avoidance rate was significantly lower than the detection rate.
Conclusion: Our work has demonstrated that the EyeCane has the potential to extend the sensory world of blind individuals by expanding their currently accessible inputs, and has offered them a new practical rehabilitation tool.
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|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5366249 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.3233/RNN-160686 | DOI Listing |
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