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Assistive technology | 653 | Mobility impairments | Bodyweight-supported treadmill training (BWSTT) are used to enhance walking ability of people with neurological injury. These machines are therapist-assisted devices that are used in the clinical setting, but is limited by the personnel and labor requirements placed on physical therapists. The BWSTT device, and many others like it, assist physical therapists by providing task-specific practice of walking in people following neurological injury. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Mobility impairments | A prosthesis, prosthetic, or prosthetic limb is a device that replaces a missing body part. It is part of the field of biomechatronics, the science of using mechanical devices with human muscular, musculoskeletal, and nervous systems to assist or enhance motor control lost by trauma, disease, or defect. Prostheses are typically used to replace parts lost by injury (traumatic) or missing from birth (congenital) or to supplement defective body parts. Inside the body, artificial heart valves are in common use with artificial hearts and lungs seeing less common use but under active technology development. Other medical devices and aids that can be considered prosthetics include hearing aids, artificial eyes, palatal obturator, gastric bands, and dentures. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Mobility impairments | Prostheses are specifically not orthoses, although given certain circumstances a prosthesis might end up performing some or all of the same functionary benefits as an orthosis. Prostheses are technically the complete finished item. For instance, a C-Leg knee alone is not a prosthesis, but only a prosthetic component. The complete prosthesis would consist of the attachment system to the residual limb — usually a "socket", and all the attachment hardware components all the way down to and including the terminal device. Despite the technical difference, the terms are often used interchangeably. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Mobility impairments | The terms "prosthetic" and "orthotic" are adjectives used to describe devices such as a prosthetic knee. The terms "prosthetics" and "orthotics" are used to describe the respective allied health fields. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Mobility impairments | An Occupational Therapist's role in prosthetics include therapy, training and evaluations. Prosthetic training includes orientation to prosthetics components and terminology, donning and doffing, wearing schedule, and how to care for residual limb and the prosthesis. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Mobility impairments | A powered exoskeleton is a wearable mobile machine that is powered by a system of electric motors, pneumatics, levers, hydraulics, or a combination of technologies that allow for limb movement with increased strength and endurance. Its design aims to provide back support, sense the user's motion, and send a signal to motors which manage the gears. The exoskeleton supports the shoulder, waist and thigh, and assists movement for lifting and holding heavy items, while lowering back stress. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Mobility impairments | People with balance and motor function challenges often need specialized equipment to sit or stand safely and securely. This equipment is frequently specialized for specific settings such as in a classroom or nursing home. Positioning is often important in seating arrangements to ensure that user's body pressure is distributed equally without inhibiting movement in a desired way. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Mobility impairments | Positioning devices have been developed to aid in allowing people to stand and bear weight on their legs without risk of a fall. These standers are generally grouped into two categories based on the position of the occupant. Prone standers distribute the body weight to the front of the individual and usually have a tray in front of them. This makes them good for users who are actively trying to carry out some task. Supine standers distribute the body weight to the back and are good for cases where the user has more limited mobility or is recovering from injury. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Mobility impairments | Children with severe disabilities can develop learned helplessness, which makes them lose interest in their environment. Robotic arms are used to provide an alternative method to engage in joint play activities. These robotic arms allow children to manipulate real objects in the context of play activities. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Mobility impairments | Children with disabilities have challenges in accessing play and social interactions. Play is essential for the physical, emotional, and social well-being of all children. The use of assistive technology has been recommended to facilitate the communication, mobility, and independence of children with disabilities. Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) devices have been shown to facilitate the growth and development of language as well as increase rates of symbolic play in children with cognitive disabilities. AAC devices can be no-tech (sign language and body language), low-tech (picture boards, paper and pencils), or high-tech (tablets and speech generating devices). The choice of AAC device is very important and should be determined on a case-by-case basis by speech therapists and assistive technology professionals. The early introduction of powered mobility has been shown to positively impact the play and psychosocial skills of children who are unable to move independently. Powered cars, such as the Go Baby Go program, have emerged as a cost-effective means of facilitating the inclusion of children with mobility impairments in school. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | Many people with serious visual impairments live independently, using a wide range of tools and techniques. Examples of assistive technology for visually impairment include screen readers, screen magnifiers, Braille embossers, desktop video magnifiers, and voice recorders. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | Screen readers are used to help the visually impaired to easily access electronic information. These software programs run on a computer in order to convey the displayed information through voice (text-to-speech) or braille (refreshable braille displays) in combination with magnification for low vision users in some cases. There are a variety of platforms and applications available for a variety of costs with differing feature sets. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | Some example of screen readers are Apple VoiceOver, Google TalkBack and Microsoft Narrator. This software is provided free of charge on all Apple devices. Apple VoiceOver includes the option to magnify the screen, control the keyboard, and provide verbal descriptions to describe what is happening on the screen. There are thirty languages to select from. It also has the capacity to read aloud file content, as well as web pages, E-mail messages, and word processing files. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | As mentioned above, screen readers may rely on the assistance of text-to-speech tools. To use the text-to-speech tools, the documents must in an electronic form, that is uploaded as the digital format. However, people usually will use the hard copy documents scanned into the computer, which cannot be recognized by the text-to-speech software. To solve this issue, people always use Optical Character Recognition technology accompanied with text-to-speech software. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | Braille is a system of raised dots formed into units called braille cells. A full braille cell is made up of six dots, with two parallel rows of three dots, but other combinations and quantities of dots represent other letters, numbers, punctuation marks, or words. People can then use their fingers to read the code of raised dots. Assistive technology using braille is called braille technology. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | A braille translator is a computer program that can translate inkprint into braille or braille into inkprint. A braille translator can be an app on a computer or be built into a website, a smartphone, or a braille device. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | A braille embosser is, simply put, a printer for braille. Instead of a standard printer adding ink onto a page, the braille embosser imprints the raised dots of braille onto a page. Some braille embossers combine both braille and ink so the documents can be read with either sight or touch. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | A refreshable braille display or braille terminal is an electro-mechanical device for displaying braille characters, usually by means of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface. Computer users who cannot use a computer monitor use it to read a braille output version of the displayed text. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | Desktop video magnifiers are electronic devices that use a camera and a display screen to perform digital magnification of printed materials. They enlarge printed pages for those with low vision. A camera connects to a monitor that displays real-time images, and the user can control settings such as magnification, focus, contrast, underlining, highlighting, and other screen preferences. They come in a variety of sizes and styles; some are small and portable with handheld cameras, while others are much larger and mounted on a fixed stand. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | A screen magnifier is software that interfaces with a computer's graphical output to present enlarged screen content. It allows users to enlarge the texts and graphics on their computer screens for easier viewing. Similar to desktop video magnifiers, this technology assists people with low vision. After the user loads the software into their computer's memory, it serves as a kind of "computer magnifying glass". Wherever the computer cursor moves, it enlarges the area around it. This allows greater computer accessibility for a wide range of visual abilities. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | A large-print keyboard has large letters printed on the keys. On the keyboard shown, the round buttons at the top control software which can magnify the screen (zoom in), change the background color of the screen, or make the mouse cursor on the screen larger. The "bump dots" on the keys, installed in this case by the organization using the keyboards, help the user find the right keys in a tactile way. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | Assistive technology for navigation has exploded on the IEEE Xplore database since 2000, with over 7,500 engineering articles written on assistive technologies and visual impairment in the past 25 years, and over 1,300 articles on solving the problem of navigation for people who are blind or visually impaired. As well, over 600 articles on augmented reality and visual impairment have appeared in the engineering literature since 2000. Most of these articles were published within the past five years, and the number of articles in this area is increasing every year. GPS, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and cameras can pinpoint the exact location of the user and provide information on what is in the immediate vicinity, and assistance in getting to a destination. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | Wearable technology are smart electronic devices that can be worn on the body as an implant or an accessory. New technologies are exploring how the visually impaired can receive visual information through wearable devices. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Visual impairments | Some wearable devices for visual impairment include: OrCam device, eSight and Brainport. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Personal emergency response systems | Personal emergency response systems (PERS), or Telecare (UK term), are a particular sort of assistive technology that use electronic sensors connected to an alarm system to help caregivers manage risk and help vulnerable people stay independent at home longer. An example would be the systems being put in place for senior people such as fall detectors, thermometers (for hypothermia risk), flooding and unlit gas sensors (for people with mild dementia). Notably, these alerts can be customized to the particular person's risks. When the alert is triggered, a message is sent to a caregiver or contact center who can respond appropriately. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Accessibility software | In human–computer interaction, computer accessibility (also known as accessible computing) refers to the accessibility of a computer system to all people, regardless of disability or severity of impairment, examples include web accessibility guidelines. Another approach is for the user to present a token to the computer terminal, such as a smart card, that has configuration information to adjust the computer speed, text size, etc. to their particular needs. This is useful where users want to access public computer based terminals in Libraries, ATM, Information kiosks etc. The concept is encompassed by the CEN EN 1332-4 Identification Card Systems – Man-Machine Interface. This development of this standard has been supported in Europe by SNAPI and has been successfully incorporated into the Lasseo specifications, but with limited success due to the lack of interest from public computer terminal suppliers. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Hearing impairments | People in the d/Deaf and hard of hearing community have a more difficult time receiving auditory information as compared to hearing individuals. These individuals often rely on visual and tactile mediums for receiving and communicating information. The use of assistive technology and devices provides this community with various solutions to auditory communication needs by providing higher sound (for those who are hard of hearing), tactile feedback, visual cues and improved technology access. Individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing utilize a variety of assistive technologies that provide them with different access to information in numerous environments. Most devices either provide amplified sound or alternate ways to access information through vision and/or vibration. These technologies can be grouped into three general categories: Hearing Technology, alerting devices, and communication support. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Hearing impairments | A hearing aid or deaf aid is an electro-acoustic device which is designed to amplify sound for the wearer, usually with the aim of making speech more intelligible, and to correct impaired hearing as measured by audiometry. This type of assistive technology helps people with hearing loss participate more fully in their hearing communities by allowing them to hear more clearly. They amplify any and all sound waves through use of a microphone, amplifier, and speaker. There is a wide variety of hearing aids available, including digital, in-the-ear, in-the-canal, behind-the-ear, and on-the-body aids. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Hearing impairments | Assistive listening devices include FM, infrared, and loop assistive listening devices. This type of technology allows people with hearing difficulties to focus on a speaker or subject by getting rid of extra background noises and distractions, making places like auditoriums, classrooms, and meetings much easier to participate in. The assistive listening device usually uses a microphone to capture an audio source near to its origin and broadcast it wirelessly over an FM (Frequency Modulation) transmission, IR (Infra Red) transmission, IL (Induction Loop) transmission, or other transmission methods. The person who is listening may use an FM/IR/IL Receiver to tune into the signal and listen at his/her preferred volume. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Hearing impairments | This type of assistive technology allows users to amplify the volume and clarity of their phone calls so that they can easily partake in this medium of communication. There are also options to adjust the frequency and tone of a call to suit their individual hearing needs. Additionally, there is a wide variety of amplified telephones to choose from, with different degrees of amplification. For example, a phone with 26 to 40 decibel is generally sufficient for mild hearing loss, while a phone with 71 to 90 decibel is better for more severe hearing loss. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Augmentative and alternative communication | Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is an umbrella term that encompasses methods of communication for those with impairments or restrictions on the production or comprehension of spoken or written language. AAC systems are extremely diverse and depend on the capabilities of the user. They may be as basic as pictures on a board that are used to request food, drink, or other care; or they can be advanced speech generating devices, based on speech synthesis, that are capable of storing hundreds of phrases and words. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Cognitive impairments | Assistive Technology for Cognition (ATC) is the use of technology (usually high tech) to augment and assist cognitive processes such as attention, memory, self-regulation, navigation, emotion recognition and management, planning, and sequencing activity. Systematic reviews of the field have found that the number of ATC are growing rapidly, but have focused on memory and planning, that there is emerging evidence for efficacy, that a lot of scope exists to develop new ATC. Examples of ATC include: NeuroPage which prompts users about meetings, Wakamaru, which provides companionship and reminds users to take medicine and calls for help if something is wrong, and telephone Reassurance systems. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Cognitive impairments | Memory aids are any type of assistive technology that helps a user learn and remember certain information. Many memory aids are used for cognitive impairments such as reading, writing, or organizational difficulties. For example, a Smartpen records handwritten notes by creating both a digital copy and an audio recording of the text. Users simply tap certain parts of their notes, the pen saves it, and reads it back to them. From there, the user can also download their notes onto a computer for increased accessibility. Digital voice recorders are also used to record "in the moment" information for fast and easy recall at a later time. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Cognitive impairments | A 2017 Cochrane Review highlighted the current lack of high-quality evidence to determine whether assistive technology effectively supports people with dementia to manage memory issues. Thus, it is not presently sure whether or not assistive technology is beneficial for memory problems. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Cognitive impairments | Educational software is software that assists people with reading, learning, comprehension, and organizational difficulties. Any accommodation software such as text readers, notetakers, text enlargers, organization tools, word predictions, and talking word processors falls under the category of educational software. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Eating impairments | Adaptive eating devices include items commonly used by the general population like spoons and forks and plates. However they become assistive technology when they are modified to accommodate the needs of people who have difficulty using standard cutlery due to a disabling condition. Common modifications include increasing the size of the utensil handle to make it easier to grasp. Plates and bowls may have a guard on the edge that stops food being pushed off of the dish when it is being scooped. More sophisticated equipment for eating includes manual and powered feeding devices. These devices support those who have little or no hand and arm function and enable them to eat independently. |
Assistive technology | 653 | In sports | Assistive technology in sports is an area of technology design that is growing. Assistive technology is the array of new devices created to enable sports enthusiasts who have disabilities to play. Assistive technology may be used in adaptive sports, where an existing sport is modified to enable players with a disability to participate; or, assistive technology may be used to invent completely new sports with athletes with disabilities exclusively in mind. |
Assistive technology | 653 | In sports | An increasing number of people with disabilities are participating in sports, leading to the development of new assistive technology. Assistive technology devices can be simple, or "low-technology", or they may use highly advanced technology. "Low-tech" devices can include velcro gloves and adaptive bands and tubes. "High-tech" devices can include all-terrain wheelchairs and adaptive bicycles. Accordingly, assistive technology can be found in sports ranging from local community recreation to the elite Paralympic Games. More complex assistive technology devices have been developed over time, and as a result, sports for people with disabilities "have changed from being a clinical therapeutic tool to an increasingly competition-oriented activity". |
Assistive technology | 653 | In education | In the United States there are two major pieces of legislation that govern the use of assistive technology within the school system. The first is Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the second being the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which was first enacted in 1975 under the name The Education for All Handicapped Children Act. In 2004, during the reauthorization period for IDEA, the National Instructional Material Access Center (NIMAC) was created which provided a repository of accessible text including publisher's textbooks to students with a qualifying disability. Files provided are in XML format and used as a starting platform for braille readers, screen readers, and other digital text software. IDEA defines assistive technology as follows: "any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of a child with a disability. (B) Exception.--The term does not include a medical device that is surgically implanted, or the replacement of such device." |
Assistive technology | 653 | In education | Assistive technology listed is a student's IEP is not only recommended, it is required (Koch, 2017). These devices help students both with and without disabilities access the curriculum in a way they were previously unable to (Koch, 2017). Occupational therapists play an important role in educating students, parents and teachers about the assistive technology they may interact with. |
Assistive technology | 653 | In education | Assistive technology in this area is broken down into low, mid, and high tech categories. Low tech encompasses equipment that is often low cost and does not include batteries or requires charging. Examples include adapted paper and pencil grips for writing or masks and color overlays for reading. Mid tech supports used in the school setting include the use of handheld spelling dictionaries and portable word processors used to keyboard writing. High tech supports involve the use of tablet devices and computers with accompanying software. Software supports for writing include the use of auditory feedback while keyboarding, word prediction for spelling, and speech to text. Supports for reading include the use of text to speech (TTS) software and font modification via access to digital text. Limited supports are available for math instruction and mostly consist of grid based software to allow younger students to keyboard equations and auditory feedback of more complex equations using MathML and Daisy. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Computer accessibility | One of the largest problems that affect disabled people is discomfort with prostheses. An experiment performed in Massachusetts utilized 20 people with various sensors attached to their arms. The subjects tried different arm exercises, and the sensors recorded their movements. All of the data helped engineers develop new engineering concepts for prosthetics. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Computer accessibility | Assistive technology may attempt to improve the ergonomics of the devices themselves such as Dvorak and other alternative keyboard layouts, which offer more ergonomic layouts of the keys. Assistive technology devices have been created to enable disabled people to use modern touch screen mobile computers such as the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The Pererro is a plug and play adapter for iOS devices which uses the built in Apple VoiceOver feature in combination with a basic switch. This brings touch screen technology to those who were previously unable to use it. Apple, with the release of iOS 7 had introduced the ability to navigate apps using switch control. Switch access could be activated either through an external bluetooth connected switch, single touch of the screen, or use of right and left head turns using the device's camera. Additional accessibility features include the use of Assistive Touch which allows a user to access multi-touch gestures through pre-programmed onscreen buttons. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Computer accessibility | For users with physical disabilities a large variety of switches are available and customizable to the user's needs varying in size, shape, or amount of pressure required for activation. Switch access may be placed near any area of the body which has consistent and reliable mobility and less subject to fatigue. Common sites include the hands, head, and feet. Eye gaze and head mouse systems can also be used as an alternative mouse navigation. A user may utilize single or multiple switch sites and the process often involves a scanning through items on a screen and activating the switch once the desired object is highlighted. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Home automation | The form of home automation called assistive domotics focuses on making it possible for elderly and disabled people to live independently. Home automation is becoming a viable option for the elderly and disabled who would prefer to stay in their own homes rather than move to a healthcare facility. This field uses much of the same technology and equipment as home automation for security, entertainment, and energy conservation but tailors it towards elderly and disabled users. For example, automated prompts and reminders utilize motion sensors and pre-recorded audio messages; an automated prompt in the kitchen may remind the resident to turn off the oven, and one by the front door may remind the resident to lock the door. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Assistive technology and innovation | Innovation is happening in assistive technology either through improvements to existing devices or the creation of new products. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Assistive technology and innovation | In the WIPO published 2021 report on Technology Trends, assistive products are grouped into either conventional or emerging technologies. Conventional assisting technology tracks innovation within well-established assistive products, whereas emerging assistive technology refers to more advanced products. These identified advanced assistive products are distinguished from the conventional ones by the use of one or more enabling technologies (for instance, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, advanced sensors, new material, additive manufacturing, advanced robotics, augmented and virtual reality) or by the inclusion of implantable products/components. Such emerging assistive products are either more sophisticated or more functional versions of conventional assistive products, or completely novel assistive devices. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Assistive technology and innovation | For instance, in conventional self-care assistive technology, technologies involved typically include adaptive clothing, adaptive eating devices, incontinence products, assistive products for manicure, pedicure, hair and facial care, dental care, or assistive products for sexual activities. In comparison, emerging self-care assistive technologies include health and emotion monitoring, smart diapers, smart medication dispensing and management or feeding assistant robot. Although the distinction between conventional and emerging technologies is not always clear-cut, emerging assistive technology tends to be "smarter", using AI and being more connected and interactive, and including body-integrated solutions or components. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Assistive technology and innovation | To a great extent this « conventional » versus « emerging » classification is based on the WHO's Priority Assistive Products List and the ISO 9999 standard for assistive products for persons with disabilities, the APL delineating the absolute minimum that countries should be offering to their citizens and ISO 9999 defining those products which are already well established in the market. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Assistive technology and innovation | This "well-established status" is reflected in the patent filings between 2013 and 2017. Patent registrations for assistive technologies identified as conventional are nearly eight times larger than the ones for emerging assistive technologies. However, patent filings related to more recent emerging assistive technologies are growing almost three times as fast as those pertaining to conventional ones. Patent filings in both conventional and emerging assistive technology are highly concentrated on mobility, hearing and vision. Investment in emerging assistive technology also focuses on environment. In the conventional sector, mobility represent 54% of all patents fillings, and is an indication of increased interest in advanced mobility assistive product categories, such as advanced prosthetics, walking aids, wheelchairs, and exoskeletons. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Assistive technology and innovation | In the past, the top patent offices for filing, and therefore perceived target markets, in assistive technology have been the U.S. and Japan. Patenting activity has, however, been declining in these two jurisdictions. At the same time, there has been a surge in patent filings in China and an increase in filings in the Republic of Korea. This pattern is observed for both conventional and emerging assistive technology, with China's annual filings surpassing those of the U.S. in 2008 for conventional and 2014 for emerging assistive technology. Patent filings related to conventional assistive technology have also declined in Europe, especially in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Norway. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Assistive technology and innovation | Patenting activity indicates the amount of interest and the investment made in respect to an invention's applicability and its commercialization potential. There is typically a lag between filing a patent application and commercialization, with a product being classified in various stages of readiness levels, research concept, proof of concept, minimum viable product and finally commercial product. According to the 2021 WIPO report, the emerging technologies closest to a fully commercial product were for example: |
Assistive technology | 653 | Assistive technology and innovation | The technology readiness level and the related patenting activity can also be explained through the following factors which contribute to a product's entry to market, such as the expected impact on a person's participation in different aspects of life, the ease of adoption (need for training, fitting, additional equipment for interoperability, and so on), the societal acceptance and potential ethical concerns, and the need for regulatory approval. This is mainly the case for assistive technology that qualifies as medical technology. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Assistive technology and innovation | Among these aspects, acceptability and ethical considerations are particularly relevant to those technologies that are extremely invasive (such as cortical or auditory brainstem implants), or replace the human caregiver and human interaction, or collect and use data on cloud-based services or interconnected devices (e.g., companion robots, smart nursing and health-monitoring technologies), raising privacy issues and requiring connectivity, or raise safety concerns, such as autonomous wheelchairs. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Assistive technology and innovation | Beyond the patent landscape, industrial designs have an added importance for the field of assistive technology. Assistive technology is often not adopted, or else abandoned entirely, because of issues to do with design (lack of appeal) or comfort (poor ergonomics). Design often plays a role after the patenting activity, as a product needs to be re-designed for mass production. |
Assistive technology | 653 | Impacts | Overall, assistive technology aims to allow disabled people to "participate more fully in all aspects of life (home, school, and community)" and increases their opportunities for "education, social interactions, and potential for meaningful employment". It creates greater independence and control for disabled individuals. For example, in one study of 1,342 infants, toddlers and preschoolers, all with some kind of developmental, physical, sensory, or cognitive disability, the use of assistive technology created improvements in child development. These included improvements in "cognitive, social, communication, literacy, motor, adaptive, and increases in engagement in learning activities". Additionally, it has been found to lighten caregiver load. Both family and professional caregivers benefit from assistive technology. Through its use, the time that a family member or friend would need to care for a patient significantly decreases. However, studies show that care time for a professional caregiver increases when assistive technology is used. Nonetheless, their work load is significantly easier as the assistive technology frees them of having to perform certain tasks. There are several platforms that use machine learning to identify the appropriate assistive device to suggest to patients, making assistive devices more accessible. |
Assistive technology | 653 | History | In 1988 the National institute on disability and rehabilitation research, NIDRR, awarded Gaulladet University a grant for the project "Robotic finger spelling hand for communication and access to text by deaf-blind persons". Researchers at the university developed and tested a robotic hand. Although it was never commercialized the concept is relevant for current and future research. |
Assistive technology | 653 | History | Since this grant, many others have been written. NIDRR funded research appears to be moving from the fabrication of robotic arms that can be used by disabled persons to perform daily activities, to developing robotics that assist with therapy in the hopes of achieving long-term performance gains. If there is success in development of robotics, these mass-marketed products could assist tomorrow's longer-living elderly individuals enough to postpone nursing home stays. "Jim Osborn, executive director of the Quality of Life Technology Center, told a 2007 gathering of long-term care providers that if such advances could delay all nursing home admissions by a month, societal savings could be $1 billion monthly". Shortage of both paid personal assistants and available family members makes artificial assistance a necessity. |
Abacus | 655 | The abacus (pl.: abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a hand-operated calculating tool of unknown origin used since ancient times in the ancient Near East, Europe, China, and Russia, millennia before the adoption of the Hindu-Arabic numeral system. |
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Abacus | 655 | The abacus consists of a two-dimensional array of slidable beads (or similar objects). In their earliest designs, the beads could be loose on a flat surface or sliding in grooves. Later the beads were made to slide on rods and built into a frame, allowing faster manipulation. |
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Abacus | 655 | Each rod typically represents one digit of a multi-digit number laid out using a positional numeral system such as base ten (though some cultures used different numerical bases). Roman and East Asian abacuses use a system resembling bi-quinary coded decimal, with a top deck (containing one or two beads) representing fives and a bottom deck (containing four or five beads) representing ones. Natural numbers are normally used, but some allow simple fractional components (e.g. 1⁄2, 1⁄4, and 1⁄12 in Roman abacus), and a decimal point can be imagined for fixed-point arithmetic. |
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Abacus | 655 | Any particular abacus design supports multiple methods to perform calculations, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and square and cube roots. The beads are first arranged to represent a number, then are manipulated to perform a mathematical operation with another number, and their final position can be read as the result (or can be used as the starting number for subsequent operations). |
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Abacus | 655 | In the ancient world, abacuses were a practical calculating tool. Although calculators and computers are commonly used today instead of abacuses, abacuses remain in everyday use in some countries. The abacus has an advantage of not requiring a writing implement and paper (needed for algorism) or an electric power source. Merchants, traders, and clerks in some parts of Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and Africa use abacuses. The abacus remains in common use as a scoring system in non-electronic table games. Others may use an abacus due to visual impairment that prevents the use of a calculator. The abacus is still used to teach the fundamentals of mathematics to children in most countries. |
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Abacus | 655 | Etymology | The word abacus dates to at least AD 1387 when a Middle English work borrowed the word from Latin that described a sandboard abacus. The Latin word is derived from ancient Greek ἄβαξ (abax) which means something without a base, and colloquially, any piece of rectangular material. Alternatively, without reference to ancient texts on etymology, it has been suggested that it means "a square tablet strewn with dust", or "drawing-board covered with dust (for the use of mathematics)" (the exact shape of the Latin perhaps reflects the genitive form of the Greek word, ἄβακoς (abakos)). While the table strewn with dust definition is popular, some argue evidence is insufficient for that conclusion. Greek ἄβαξ probably borrowed from a Northwest Semitic language like Phoenician, evidenced by a cognate with the Hebrew word ʾābāq (אבק), or "dust" (in the post-Biblical sense "sand used as a writing surface"). |
Abacus | 655 | Etymology | Both abacuses and abaci are used as plurals. The user of an abacus is called an abacist. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The Sumerian abacus appeared between 2700 and 2300 BC. It held a table of successive columns which delimited the successive orders of magnitude of their sexagesimal (base 60) number system. |
Abacus | 655 | History | Some scholars point to a character in Babylonian cuneiform that may have been derived from a representation of the abacus. It is the belief of Old Babylonian scholars, such as Ettore Carruccio, that Old Babylonians "seem to have used the abacus for the operations of addition and subtraction; however, this primitive device proved difficult to use for more complex calculations". |
Abacus | 655 | History | Greek historian Herodotus mentioned the abacus in Ancient Egypt. He wrote that the Egyptians manipulated the pebbles from right to left, opposite in direction to the Greek left-to-right method. Archaeologists have found ancient disks of various sizes that are thought to have been used as counters. However, wall depictions of this instrument are yet to be discovered. |
Abacus | 655 | History | At around 600 BC, Persians first began to use the abacus, during the Achaemenid Empire. Under the Parthian, Sassanian, and Iranian empires, scholars concentrated on exchanging knowledge and inventions with the countries around them – India, China, and the Roman Empire- which is how the abacus may have been exported to other countries. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The earliest archaeological evidence for the use of the Greek abacus dates to the 5th century BC. Demosthenes (384 BC–322 BC) complained that the need to use pebbles for calculations was too difficult. A play by Alexis from the 4th century BC mentions an abacus and pebbles for accounting, and both Diogenes and Polybius use the abacus as a metaphor for human behavior, stating "that men that sometimes stood for more and sometimes for less" like the pebbles on an abacus. The Greek abacus was a table of wood or marble, pre-set with small counters in wood or metal for mathematical calculations. This Greek abacus was used in Achaemenid Persia, the Etruscan civilization, Ancient Rome, and the Western Christian world until the French Revolution. |
Abacus | 655 | History | A tablet found on the Greek island Salamis in 1846 AD (the Salamis Tablet) dates to 300 BC, making it the oldest counting board discovered so far. It is a slab of white marble 149 cm (59 in) in length, 75 cm (30 in) wide, and 4.5 cm (2 in) thick, on which are 5 groups of markings. In the tablet's center is a set of 5 parallel lines equally divided by a vertical line, capped with a semicircle at the intersection of the bottom-most horizontal line and the single vertical line. Below these lines is a wide space with a horizontal crack dividing it. Below this crack is another group of eleven parallel lines, again divided into two sections by a line perpendicular to them, but with the semicircle at the top of the intersection; the third, sixth and ninth of these lines are marked with a cross where they intersect with the vertical line. Also from this time frame, the Darius Vase was unearthed in 1851. It was covered with pictures, including a "treasurer" holding a wax tablet in one hand while manipulating counters on a table with the other. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The normal method of calculation in ancient Rome, as in Greece, was by moving counters on a smooth table. Originally pebbles (Latin: calculi) were used. Marked lines indicated units, fives, tens, etc. as in the Roman numeral system. |
Abacus | 655 | History | Writing in the 1st century BC, Horace refers to the wax abacus, a board covered with a thin layer of black wax on which columns and figures were inscribed using a stylus. |
Abacus | 655 | History | One example of archaeological evidence of the Roman abacus, shown nearby in reconstruction, dates to the 1st century AD. It has eight long grooves containing up to five beads in each and eight shorter grooves having either one or no beads in each. The groove marked I indicates units, X tens, and so on up to millions. The beads in the shorter grooves denote fives (five units, five tens, etc.) resembling a bi-quinary coded decimal system related to the Roman numerals. The short grooves on the right may have been used for marking Roman "ounces" (i.e. fractions). |
Abacus | 655 | History | The Roman system of 'counter casting' was used widely in medieval Europe, and persisted in limited use into the nineteenth century. Wealthy abacists used decorative minted counters, called jetons. |
Abacus | 655 | History | Due to Pope Sylvester II's reintroduction of the abacus with modifications, it became widely used in Europe again during the 11th century It used beads on wires, unlike the traditional Roman counting boards, which meant the abacus could be used much faster and was more easily moved. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The earliest known written documentation of the Chinese abacus dates to the 2nd century BC. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The Chinese abacus, also known as the suanpan (算盤/算盘, lit. "calculating tray"), comes in various lengths and widths, depending on the operator. It usually has more than seven rods. There are two beads on each rod in the upper deck and five beads each in the bottom one, to represent numbers in a bi-quinary coded decimal-like system. The beads are usually rounded and made of hardwood. The beads are counted by moving them up or down towards the beam; beads moved toward the beam are counted, while those moved away from it are not. One of the top beads is 5, while one of the bottom beads is 1. Each rod has a number under it, showing the place value. The suanpan can be reset to the starting position instantly by a quick movement along the horizontal axis to spin all the beads away from the horizontal beam at the center. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The prototype of the Chinese abacus appeared during the Han dynasty, and the beads are oval. The Song dynasty and earlier used the 1:4 type or four-beads abacus similar to the modern abacus including the shape of the beads commonly known as Japanese-style abacus. |
Abacus | 655 | History | In the early Ming dynasty, the abacus began to appear in a 1:5 ratio. The upper deck had one bead and the bottom had five beads. In the late Ming dynasty, the abacus styles appeared in a 2:5 ratio. The upper deck had two beads, and the bottom had five. |
Abacus | 655 | History | Various calculation techniques were devised for Suanpan enabling efficient calculations. Some schools teach students how to use it. |
Abacus | 655 | History | In the long scroll Along the River During the Qingming Festival painted by Zhang Zeduan during the Song dynasty (960–1297), a suanpan is clearly visible beside an account book and doctor's prescriptions on the counter of an apothecary's (Feibao). |
Abacus | 655 | History | The similarity of the Roman abacus to the Chinese one suggests that one could have inspired the other, given evidence of a trade relationship between the Roman Empire and China. However, no direct connection has been demonstrated, and the similarity of the abacuses may be coincidental, both ultimately arising from counting with five fingers per hand. Where the Roman model (like most modern Korean and Japanese) has 4 plus 1 bead per decimal place, the standard suanpan has 5 plus 2. Incidentally, this allows use with a hexadecimal numeral system (or any base up to 18) which may have been used for traditional Chinese measures of weight. (Instead of running on wires as in the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese models, the Roman model used grooves, presumably making arithmetic calculations much slower.) |
Abacus | 655 | History | Another possible source of the suanpan is Chinese counting rods, which operated with a decimal system but lacked the concept of zero as a placeholder. The zero was probably introduced to the Chinese in the Tang dynasty (618–907) when travel in the Indian Ocean and the Middle East would have provided direct contact with India, allowing them to acquire the concept of zero and the decimal point from Indian merchants and mathematicians. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The Abhidharmakośabhāṣya of Vasubandhu (316-396), a Sanskrit work on Buddhist philosophy, says that the second-century CE philosopher Vasumitra said that "placing a wick (Sanskrit vartikā) on the number one (ekāṅka) means it is a one while placing the wick on the number hundred means it is called a hundred, and on the number one thousand means it is a thousand". It is unclear exactly what this arrangement may have been. Around the 5th century, Indian clerks were already finding new ways of recording the contents of the abacus. Hindu texts used the term śūnya (zero) to indicate the empty column on the abacus. |
Abacus | 655 | History | In Japan, the abacus is called soroban (算盤, そろばん, lit. "counting tray"). It was imported from China in the 14th century. It was probably in use by the working class a century or more before the ruling class adopted it, as the class structure obstructed such changes. The 1:4 abacus, which removes the seldom-used second and fifth bead, became popular in the 1940s. |
Abacus | 655 | History | Today's Japanese abacus is a 1:4 type, four-bead abacus, introduced from China in the Muromachi era. It adopts the form of the upper deck one bead and the bottom four beads. The top bead on the upper deck was equal to five and the bottom one is similar to the Chinese or Korean abacus, and the decimal number can be expressed, so the abacus is designed as a one:four device. The beads are always in the shape of a diamond. The quotient division is generally used instead of the division method; at the same time, in order to make the multiplication and division digits consistently use the division multiplication. Later, Japan had a 3:5 abacus called 天三算盤, which is now in the Ize Rongji collection of Shansi Village in Yamagata City. Japan also used a 2:5 type abacus. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The four-bead abacus spread, and became common around the world. Improvements to the Japanese abacus arose in various places. In China an aluminium frame plastic bead abacus was used. The file is next to the four beads, and pressing the "clearing" button put the upper bead in the upper position, and the lower bead in the lower position. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The abacus is still manufactured in Japan even with the proliferation, practicality, and affordability of pocket electronic calculators. The use of the soroban is still taught in Japanese primary schools as part of mathematics, primarily as an aid to faster mental calculation. Using visual imagery can complete a calculation as quickly as a physical instrument. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The Chinese abacus migrated from China to Korea around 1400 AD. Koreans call it jupan (주판), supan (수판) or jusan (주산). The four-beads abacus (1:4) was introduced during the Goryeo Dynasty. The 5:1 abacus was introduced to Korea from China during the Ming Dynasty. |
Abacus | 655 | History | Some sources mention the use of an abacus called a nepohualtzintzin in ancient Aztec culture. This Mesoamerican abacus used a 5-digit base-20 system. The word Nepōhualtzintzin Nahuatl pronunciation: [nepoːwaɬˈt͡sint͡sin] comes from Nahuatl, formed by the roots; Ne – personal -; pōhual or pōhualli Nahuatl pronunciation: [ˈpoːwalːi] – the account -; and tzintzin Nahuatl pronunciation: [ˈt͡sint͡sin] – small similar elements. Its complete meaning was taken as: counting with small similar elements. Its use was taught in the Calmecac to the temalpouhqueh Nahuatl pronunciation: [temaɬˈpoʍkeʔ], who were students dedicated to taking the accounts of skies, from childhood. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The Nepōhualtzintzin was divided into two main parts separated by a bar or intermediate cord. In the left part were four beads. Beads in the first row have unitary values (1, 2, 3, and 4), and on the right side, three beads had values of 5, 10, and 15, respectively. In order to know the value of the respective beads of the upper rows, it is enough to multiply by 20 (by each row), the value of the corresponding count in the first row. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The device featured 13 rows with 7 beads, 91 in total. This was a basic number for this culture. It had a close relation to natural phenomena, the underworld, and the cycles of the heavens. One Nepōhualtzintzin (91) represented the number of days that a season of the year lasts, two Nepōhualtzitzin (182) is the number of days of the corn's cycle, from its sowing to its harvest, three Nepōhualtzintzin (273) is the number of days of a baby's gestation, and four Nepōhualtzintzin (364) completed a cycle and approximated one year. When translated into modern computer arithmetic, the Nepōhualtzintzin amounted to the rank from 10 to 18 in floating point, which precisely calculated large and small amounts, although round off was not allowed. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The rediscovery of the Nepōhualtzintzin was due to the Mexican engineer David Esparza Hidalgo, who in his travels throughout Mexico found diverse engravings and paintings of this instrument and reconstructed several of them in gold, jade, encrustations of shell, etc. Very old Nepōhualtzintzin are attributed to the Olmec culture, and some bracelets of Mayan origin, as well as a diversity of forms and materials in other cultures. |
Abacus | 655 | History | Sanchez wrote in Arithmetic in Maya that another base 5, base 4 abacus had been found in the Yucatán Peninsula that also computed calendar data. This was a finger abacus, on one hand, 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 were used; and on the other hand 0, 1, 2, and 3 were used. Note the use of zero at the beginning and end of the two cycles. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The quipu of the Incas was a system of colored knotted cords used to record numerical data, like advanced tally sticks – but not used to perform calculations. Calculations were carried out using a yupana (Quechua for "counting tool"; see figure) which was still in use after the conquest of Peru. The working principle of a yupana is unknown, but in 2001 Italian mathematician De Pasquale proposed an explanation. By comparing the form of several yupanas, researchers found that calculations were based using the Fibonacci sequence 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and powers of 10, 20, and 40 as place values for the different fields in the instrument. Using the Fibonacci sequence would keep the number of grains within any one field at a minimum. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The Russian abacus, the schoty (Russian: счёты, plural from Russian: счёт, counting), usually has a single slanted deck, with ten beads on each wire (except one wire with four beads for quarter-ruble fractions). 4-bead wire was introduced for quarter-kopeks, which were minted until 1916. The Russian abacus is used vertically, with each wire running horizontally. The wires are usually bowed upward in the center, to keep the beads pinned to either side. It is cleared when all the beads are moved to the right. During manipulation, beads are moved to the left. For easy viewing, the middle 2 beads on each wire (the 5th and 6th bead) usually are of a different color from the other eight. Likewise, the left bead of the thousands wire (and the million wire, if present) may have a different color. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The Russian abacus was in use in shops and markets throughout the former Soviet Union, and its usage was taught in most schools until the 1990s. Even the 1874 invention of mechanical calculator, Odhner arithmometer, had not replaced them in Russia; according to Yakov Perelman. Some businessmen attempting to import calculators into the Russian Empire were known to leave in despair after watching a skilled abacus operator. Likewise, the mass production of Felix arithmometers since 1924 did not significantly reduce abacus use in the Soviet Union. The Russian abacus began to lose popularity only after the mass production of domestic microcalculators in 1974. |
Abacus | 655 | History | The Russian abacus was brought to France around 1820 by mathematician Jean-Victor Poncelet, who had served in Napoleon's army and had been a prisoner of war in Russia. The abacus had fallen out of use in western Europe in the 16th century with the rise of decimal notation and algorismic methods. To Poncelet's French contemporaries, it was something new. Poncelet used it, not for any applied purpose, but as a teaching and demonstration aid. The Turks and the Armenian people used abacuses similar to the Russian schoty. It was named a coulba by the Turks and a choreb by the Armenians. |
Abacus | 655 | School abacus | Around the world, abacuses have been used in pre-schools and elementary schools as an aid in teaching the numeral system and arithmetic. |
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