Clinicians at Bruyère Continuing Care are always looking for technologies that allow people with disabilities to have better access to computers and communication devices. The Nouse® technology responds to this need by providing hands-free computer access to individuals with disabilities including those who have suffered a spinal cord injury or a stroke. For a full description of the technology as well as news media coverage, please see: http://www.ivim.ca/.

To date, the Nouse® research program has been conducted in a series of phases with the overall objective of these investigations to systematically identify ways of enhancing the usefulness and appeal of the Nouse® for individuals with disabilities. Each phase has been carried out at Saint-Vincent Hospital with the assistance of students in the occupational therapy program at the University of Ottawa.

The objective of Phase 1 of the project was to introduce the technology to 15 individuals with severe disabilities to evaluate the feasibility of the prototype Nouse® software in a clinical setting. The objective of Phase 2 was to evaluate the enhancements to the technology, which were made as a result of feedback from Phase 1 testing; 12 participants were recruited for this phase.   Phase 3 was a comparative study which investigated if the Nouse® possessed advantages over a marketed tool called the Tracker. Nine participants were involved and results from this phase demonstrated the Nouse® requires less neck movement and is cheaper and more portable than its commercial counterpart.

In the current phase of our research (Phase 4), the team will be looking to see whether individuals are more satisfied and better able to use the Nouse®  after three weeks of practice than they were after only two sessions of introduction and instruction (i.e., the amount of instruction that was given during Phase 3). In this phase of the study, the team hypothesizes that the participants’ proficiency and satisfaction with Nouse® will improve following practice sessions. If this is the case, then we will gain evidence that when individuals are considering using the Nouse®  for hands-free computer access, it is worth have an extended practice period, rather than deciding immediately that Nouse®  is not a good option for them.

Computer science and engineering students are also becoming involved in the project to make further enhancements to the Nouse® in areas such as face recognition, mouseless programming, Nouse® performance evaluation and testing.

Project Investigators:

Mary Egan, University of Ottawa and Élisabeth Bruyère Research Institute

Bocar N’Diaye, Saint-Vincent Hospital

Jeffrey Jutai, University of Ottawa and Élisabeth Bruyère Research Institute

Hilary McKee, Saint-Vincent Hospital

Agathe Rhéaume, Saint-Vincent Hosptial    

Jodie Taylor, Élisabeth Bruyère Research Institute

Industry Partner: