Cutting-edge technology is set to be a game-changer in the future development of assistive products (APs) for the disability and rehabilitation sectors.
Four trainers from Rehab Skills Lab attended a five-day course at the University of Stellenbosch in November to explore how advancements in fields such as software, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and mechatronics can influence service delivery.
The programme highlighted the importance of a user-centric approach, meaning devices should be effective in terms of their intended function, comfortable, easy to use and aesthetically pleasing for the client.
“Users have real-life experience and are important role-players in assistive technology (AT) and product co-creation and knowledge sharing,” RSL co-founder Dr Elsje Scheffler explains.
She says many digital interventions that benefit everyone, including those with specific needs, are already universally accessible.
“Consider online shopping for those with mobility impairments or audiobooks catering to people with impaired vision.”
Speech-recognition and voice-to-text software are more examples that give us a glimpse into the future, according to Elsje.
AT in modern medicine has actually been commonplace for a long time – think of monitoring patient vitals during surgery or afterwards in ICU or measuring blood pressure, heartrate and blood oxygen levels in everyday practice. Pacemakers are another good example.
In the rehabilitation arena, there are apps that analyse movement and monitor adherence to home-exercise programmes while new technologies are assisting with the prediction of risk among specific patient populations.
Here, for instance, AI and machine-learning models can be used to interpret data to forecast the likelihood of a spinal-cord patient developing a pressure sore.
It does, however, concern her that research and development of APs are primarily focused on contexts found within the wealthy Global North while largely ignoring the needs in less-resourced settings.
“The demands are challenging,” she says, pointing at the conflicting expectation that AT should be widely applied while also catering for individual functionality across different geographic contexts.
Add to that the complex need to perform advanced and enhanced functions while still rolling out an affordable solution.
Elsje does find that some of the newer technologies align well with real-world experiences.
Knee sensors in the latest prosthetic knees recognise changes in walking speed and surfaces and adjust these accordingly to allow running and foot-over-foot stair-climbing and descending.
Exoskeletons and robotics can be used as APs to help certain wheelchair users stand or walk but can also be integrated in rehabilitation equipment to help people with movement disorders (like stroke and brain injury patients) to relearn specific movements.
Elsje hopes biomedical engineering projects at South African universities can contribute to advances in AT and APs and deliver mainstream solutions down the line.
Importantly, this can be done in conjunction with their African counterparts already established in this field.
The major stumbling block is limited engagement with users, clinicians and assistive technology researchers, designers and manufacturers and she therefore proposes the establishment of a platform to foster communication and align efforts.
Stellenbosch has a post-graduate, multidisciplinary department in rehabilitation studies and is the logical party to facilitate teaching, learning and research into AT and APs for the Global South.
Prof Robert Riener from the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems associated with the ETH Zurich public university and University of Zurich was the technology decoder-in-chief at the course.
“Robert managed to make it understandable – tech 101,” Elsje says.
The programme, which was also attended by RSL’s Adri Visser, Andrea Trout-Daniels and Janine Botha, is understood to be the first of its kind offered to rehabilitation professionals.