Wheelchairs: tongue-controlled steering

FOR every road death you read about, at least two people are critically injured. Most people recover after months of intensive rehabilitation. 

A few, however, stay in wheelchairs for life. One such man is the indomitable Dr Cavil Mills, whose book The Truth About Wheels shows how being bound to a chair makes for a wry life. Mills created “the thingy”, a keyboard that fits in the one hand he can move. 

Now the Georgia Institute of Technology has a new solution for people who suffer severe spinal-cord injuries.
The Tongue Drive System is a wireless device that allows the user to operate computers and control electric
wheelchairs with a magnet stud in the tongue, and a sensor-studded dental retainer.

Output from the sensors is beamed to special app-equipped iPods or iPhones that decipher the user’s intended commands in real time by ascertaining the tongue magnet’s position relative to the other sensors. That data can then drive a computer’s cursor or double for the joystick control of an electric wheelchair. A tiny rechargeable lithium-ion cell powers the entire unit, which is covered with water-resistant insulation and vacuum moulded into a custom-made dental-acrylic appliance.