Enhanced Multimedia Telehealth for Hearing Disabilities

描述(由申请人提供)：远程医疗或远程保健已开通 专门的健康服务领域，为那些本来可能无法 获得适当的护理。尽管在远程医疗方面进行了巨大的公共投资 倡议，聋人或重听人会遇到严重的障碍 由于有限的音频质量和有限的标志，在访问当前系统时 语言和唇读能力。此外，目前的视频会议 系统依赖于硬件，因此这项技术的启动成本很高 并进行升级。该项目提出了一系列由软件驱动的调整，以 目前的远程医疗系统将促进语音和手语 理解。该项目将实现三个目标：1)提高语言水平 通过开发实时语音驱动的字幕系统来理解 自动转录医护人员的语音，以便在 患者和医疗保健提供者的远程医疗网站，2)它将促进 通过开发高质量低延迟的唇读和手语阅读 纯软件视频编码系统，可提供清晰的嘴唇运动场景 并与语音和字幕同步，以及3)它将评估 这些技术创新在促进可接受的 不同性别人群远程健康互动中的语言理解水平 听力频谱。虽然拟议的目标侧重于有听力的人 损失，预计远程医疗的多媒体增强将 对听力完好的人也有很大的好处。经济衰退带来的影响 拟议中的创新影响深远。医疗专科服务包括： 急救服务、心脏病学、精神病学，目前使用远程医疗 网络系统将变得更容易为聋人和重听人所用 患者，包括许多患有听力损失的老年人。建议数 调整还将允许远程医疗支持其他服务，如 如言语/语言治疗和认知康复；因此，扩大了 向农村和其他服务不足的人群提供的一系列服务。 改善对聋人和重听人的及时护理的机会将很可能 改善这些人口的健康状况。此外，它还将减少 美国农村地区耳聋的隔离。拟议的创新将具有 理论上和世界范围内的适用性，并将促进与健康相关的研究 远程医疗应用以及传统上不应得的需求 这些人口包括聋人、重听人和老年人。

DESCRIPTION (Provided by Applicant): Telemedicine or telehealth has opened a world of specialty health services to persons who may otherwise be unable to access appropriate care. Despite enormous public investment in telehealth initiatives, people who are deaf or hard of hearing encounter serious barriers in accessing current systems because of limited audio quality and limited sign language and lip reading capability. In addition, current videoconferencing systems are hardware-dependent, rendering this technology costly to initiate and upgrade. This project proposes a software driven array of adaptations to current telehealth systems that will facilitate speech and sign language comprehension. The project will achieve three aims: 1) It will enhance language comprehension by developing a real-time voice driven captioning system that automatically transcribes the speech of health care providers for display at both patient and health care provider telehealth sites, 2) It wilI facilitate lip reading and sign language reading by developing a high quality low delay software-only video coding system that can deliver clear motion scenes of lips and hands in synchrony with both speech and captions, and 3) It will evaluate the effectiveness of these technological innovations in facilitating acceptable language comprehension levels in telehealth interactions among persons across the hearing spectrum. While the proposed aims focus on persons with hearing loss, it is expected that the multimedia enhancements to telehealth will significantly benefit persons with intact hearing as well. The effects of the proposed innovations are far-reaching. Medical specialty services including: emergency services, cardiology, psychiatry, which currently use telehealth network systems will become more accessible to deaf and hard of hearing patients, including many elderly persons with hearing loss. The proposed adaptations also will allow for telehealth to support additional services such as speech/language therapy, and cognitive rehabilitation; thus, broadening the array of services available to rural and other underserved populations. Improved access to timely care for deaf and hard of hearing persons will likely improve the health of these populations. In addition, it will reduce the dual isolation of deafness in rural America. The proposed innovations will have notional and worldwide applicability and will spur health-related research in telehealth applications as well as the need of traditionally undeserved populations including deaf, hard of hearing and elderly persons.