Optics: eye examining – vision testing and correcting – Eye examining or testing instrument – Objective type
Patent
1988-01-26
1990-08-07
Bovernick, Rodney B.
Optics: eye examining, vision testing and correcting
Eye examining or testing instrument
Objective type
351209, A61B 314
Patent
active
049462717
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
THE FIELD OF THE INVENTION AND PRIOR ART
The present invention relates to a device for making it possible for in particular disabled persons without capability to speak and to move their arms to communicate with the environment, but the device of the invention may also have sound and healthy persons as user group.
For disabled persons which have no capability to speak and are nearly totally crippled, in any case not able to point at what they want to have by means of their extremities or by movements thereof tell other what they want, it is desirable to provide a device which makes it possible for these persons to communicate in an easy, reliable and comfortable way with other persons, especially nursing staff, or possibly an apparatus or computer, in order to tell these what kind of wishes they have or else have to tell. Through such a device it would also be possible to control other equipment, such as an apparatus which raises and lowers the pillow or the like.
In order to obtain this it is possible for the nursing staff to either show the disabled person a text and ask him to for instance wink two times if he agrees with the content of the text and once if he has another opinion. It is also possible for the other person to say something to the disabled person and he may answer by appropriate winking.
However, these possibilities presently offered the severely disabled person to communicate with the environment and get his wishes fulfilled are very unsatisfying, since it is necessary that the person is present in order to notice what the disabled person tries to say and the disabled person only is able to answer questions necessitating answers of the yes-and-no-type, if it should be avoided to utilize a very complicated and unreliable winking system.
A completely sound and healthy person having both hands occupied by very difficult employments and desires to control a further machine or the like, but can not remove any of his hands from the employment he is carrying out and has to stay in a very exact position under avoiding great movements, does in the practise find himself in the same situation as the disabled person mentioned above.
This person desires also to control said machine or the like in an easy and reliable way. Such a control carried out by means of a foot pedal may in many situations be unsuitable or not accomplishable, for instance when the person in question carries out the work in the standing position.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object of the present invention is to provide a device of the above type which eliminates the drawbacks according to above for the persons with the above-mentioned communication problems.
According to the invention this object is obtained by providing a device of this kind with means adapted to detect the direction of the pupil of one of the eyes of said person and means adapted to evaluate the direction information from said previous means so as to deliver a signal, the character of which depends on the direction of the eye of a person.
Through this it is not required any longer to have a person in the vicinity of a disabled person, in order to enable the latter to express his opinions and wishes, since said means detect in what direction the person is looking and the evaluating means generates a signal which depends on this direction, different directions of the gaze being suitably coordinated with different information which the disabled person wants to communicate to the environment, and the signals from the evaluating means may in this way be decoded in an appropriate manner by a suitable apparatus, for example a computer. The information emanating from the disabled person may control any type of machine, may be stored in a memory of a computer in order to later on be read by nursing staff, be led to a room in which the nursing staff stays in order to, for instance, produce an alarm or the like.
Since it is possible for a person to direct the gaze in many different directions, i.e. towards different objects, the person in question gets a great stock
REFERENCES:
patent: 3986030 (1976-10-01), Teltscher
patent: 4109145 (1978-08-01), Graf
patent: 4568159 (1986-02-01), Baldwin
P.ang.lsg.ang.rd Gote
stlin Lars O.
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