Factors affecting ultrasound usability in speech therapy

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Our partner, Clarius, developed wireless medical ultrasound transducers that transmit ultrasound images to**mobile devices (iOS or Android) for visualization, providing medical practitioners with a low cost, mobile**imaging solution for emergency departments or the general practitioner's office. Clarius is now considering an**expansion towards the niche market of speech therapy, where ultrasound imaging of the tongue is emerging as**a visual biofeedback method to treat persistent articulatory disorders. However, it is unknown whether Clarius's**technology satisfies this market's usability requirements. This project aims at understanding usability**requirements in the context of ultrasound imaging biofeedback-based speech therapy, as they pertain to speech**therapists and their patients, and to determine whether the frame rate and image quality provided by a wireless**transducer, and a simplified app-based user interface address these requirements. This project consists of two**usability studies. The first study concerns the speech therapist's experience with the user interface, and will**focus on the learnability of the simplified user interface and its efficiency in the biofeedback-based speech**therapy context. These dimensions of usability will be evaluated by analyzing therapists' interactions with the**device and their train of thought (to be expressed aloud) as recorded by a video camera, as well as**questionnaires. The second usability study focuses on the biofeedback experience offered to the patient and**more specifically concerns the effectiveness of ultrasound visual biofeedback as a function of image quality**and frame rate. These dimensions of usability will be assessed by evaluating the ability of healthy participants**to reproduce token tongue motions with biofeedback provided at different levels of image quality and frame**rates. Should Clarius decide to market its wireless ultrasound imaging technology to speech therapists and**speech scientists on the basis of improvements resulting from our research, ultrasound imaging technology may**be adopted as a therapeutic instrument more widely by Canadian speech therapists, thereby improving many**patients' speech intelligibility and quality of life.