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November 12, 2020

A wearable sensor to help ALS patients communicate


Researchers have designed a stretchable, skin-like device that can be attached to a patient’s face and can measure small movements such as a twitch or a smile. Using this approach, patients with ALS, for example, could communicate customizable messages and a variety of sentiments, such as “I love you” or “I’m hungry,” with small movements that are measured and interpreted by the device. The work was done by a research team at MIT with funding from the MIT Media Lab Consortium, National Science Foundation, and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.

Credit: Conformable Decoders/MIT Media Lab


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