Gesture Recognition in Aphasia Therapy

失语症是一种语言障碍，通常由中风引起。它影响了相当多的人；在英国，大约有25万人患有失语症，每年大约有4.5万新病例。失语症患者在沟通的各个方面都有困难：说、读、写。失语症的负面影响可能是巨大的，不仅限于受影响的人，而且直系亲属和社交圈也能感受到。治疗师提倡的一种方法是让失语症患者使用手势进行交流，但这也带来了挑战，因为产生和理解手势的能力可能会受损。在最近的研究中，我们调查了手势的产生是否可以通过治疗来增强，面对面治疗的初步证据是令人鼓舞的。然而，手势治疗是资源密集型的，这激发了我们的提议。我们的目标是开发和试验一种创新的手势训练工具，用于家庭失语症治疗。这将建立在我们现有的非计算机治疗工作的基础上，在这一领域以前没有发表过研究。我们实现这一目标的方法将是改进和适应现有的手势识别技术，将其纳入我们将开发的培训包中。在此过程中，我们将完善和利用现有的手势识别和基于手势的交互研究，利用主流的交互设备，如任天堂Wii遥控器和开源软件。我们将为这个用户社区研究适当形式的手势识别和反馈。该工具的开发将解决几个基本问题：它需要识别与失语症使用者相关的大量手势，并可以由治疗师训练；它不能过于敏感，因为手势产生可能是可变的和不准确的；我们需要在工具中理解并纳入适当形式的培训和反馈。野外研究是这一提议不可或缺的一部分。我们的项目合作伙伴中风协会将促进与用户社区的密切接触。随着治疗工具的设计和发展，失语症患者将被聘为探索和评估手势识别技术的顾问。在项目的后期阶段，将对10名严重失语症患者进行一项试点研究，以调查该工具的治疗效果及其更广泛的可接受性。在治疗中使用手势识别技术的潜在变革性影响是显著的。考虑到受失语症影响的人数，提供一种治疗有效、低成本的手势训练工具将会带来实质性的好处。

Aphasia is a language disorder, usually caused by stroke. It affects a substantial number of people; there are about 250,000 people living with aphasia in the UK and approximately 45,000 new cases each year. People with aphasia have difficulty with all aspects of communication: speaking, reading and writing. The negative effects of aphasia can be immense and are not confined to the affected person but are also felt by the immediate family and social circle.One approach advocated by therapists is for the aphasic person to communicate using gestures, but this also poses challenges as the ability to produce and understand gestures may be impaired. In recent research we have investigated whether gesture production can be enhanced by therapy and the initial evidence from face-to-face therapy is encouraging. However gesture therapy is resource-intensive and this has motivated our proposal.Our goal is to develop and pilot an innovative gesture training tool to be used in aphasia therapy at home. This will build on our existing work on non-computer based therapy and there is no previous published research in this area. Our approach to achieving this goal will be to refine and adapt existing gesture recognition technology, incorporating it within a training package that we will develop. In so doing, we will refine and exploit existing research into gesture recognition and gesture-based interaction, utilising mainstream interaction devices such as the Nintendo Wii remote and open source software. We will investigate appropriate forms of gesture recognition and feedback for this user community.The development of the tool will address several fundamental issues: it needs to recognise a substantial set of gestures that are relevant to the aphasic user and can be trained by the therapist; it must not be over-sensitive as gesture production is likely to be variable and inaccurate; we need to understand and incorporate appropriate forms of training and feedback in the tool.Research in the wild is integral to this proposal. Close engagement with the user community will be facilitated by our project partner, the Stroke Association. Aphasic people will be employed as consultants in exploring and evaluating gesture recognition technologies as the design and development of the therapy tool progresses. In the later stages of the project, a pilot study will be conducted with 10 people who have severe aphasia to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of the tool as well as its broader acceptability.The potential transformational impact of using gesture-recognition technology in therapy is significant. Given the numbers of people affected by aphasia, the provision of a therapeutically effective, low-cost, gesture training tool would be of substantial benefit.