Development of self-driven artificial tongue to aid swallowing function and soft actuator for phonetic function

在吞咽的口腔阶段，用人工舌很难再现正常的舌头运动。本研究开发了一种新型的人工舌来辅助吞咽。人造舌头的结构由塑料和橡皮筋组成，设计用于再现吞咽时舌头的运动。通过施加轻微的压力，人工舌头会产生一系列的运动。我们的人工舌头复制了一系列的舌头动作如下：1. 闭口（扳机）+闭咽，2，将食物丸持于舌背中心。通过提舌底打开咽，2。将食物丸流进张开的咽部。用舌底的压力将食物丸流进喉咽。这个系列的导火索是意志运动。因此，我们认为人工舌可以辅助更正常的生理吞咽。

It is very difficult to reproduce normal tongue movement in the oral phase of swallowing with an artificial tongue. This study developed a novel artificial tongue to assist in swallowing. The fabric of the artificial tongue was constructed with plastic and rubber bands and was designed to reproduce tongue movement in the oral phase of swallowing. A series of movements of the artificial tongue were induced by applying slight pressure.Our artificial tongue reproduced the series of tongue movements as follows; 1. Hold the food bolus to the center of dorsum of tongue via closing mouth (trigger) + Closing the pharynx, 2. Open the pharynx via lifting base of tongue, 3. Flowing the food bolus into the opened pharynx, 4. Flowing the food bolus into laryngopharynx with pressure on the base of tongue. The trigger for the series was volitional movement. Therefore, it was considered that the artificial tongue could assist in more normal physiological swallowing.