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Mechanical engineering students’ innovations help people living with ALS
The World Health Organization predicts that neurodegenerative diseases like ALS will surpass cancer as the leading cause of death in Canada by 2040, but a number of mechanical engineering students at UBC aren’t waiting to help patients suffering from ALS. For the last three years, mechanical engineering undergraduates at UBC, with the support of the ALS society of BC, have been using their capstone design projects to help people with ALS.
Commonly known in North America as Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS affects the motor neurons controlling voluntary muscles, leading to paralysis and muscle atrophy. However, ALS does not usually affect mental awareness, sensory perception or the control of eye movement. New technology has been developed to track the movement of the eye, and UBC Mechanical Engineering students have adapted this technology to improve neck braces, working to improve quality of life for members of their community.
“As ALS progresses and affects the muscles in the arms and hands, patients who had been able to use communication devices operated by switches are left with a challenge to communicate,” says Wendy Toyer, Executive Director of the ALS Society of BC. “I have seen firsthand how this type of technology has improved the quality of life for patients who are left with only eye movement. Extraordinary!”
People with ALS are able to substantially benefit from mechanical devices, however many devices currently in use have not been specifically designed for people with ALS. Toyer points out, “As an example, most neck braces are designed to support a spinal cord injury, not muscle atrophy. Where the traditional neck braces work ’OK’ they are not the best scenario for ALS.”
Graeham Douglas, a fourth year mechanical engineering student in the Biomedical Engineering Option, became involved with the ALS controllable neck brace with the idea that “Engineers have a role alongside clinicians in providing healthcare solutions. ALS is not yet well understood from a medical perspective, giving the opportunity for engineers to help people until medical approaches lead to treatments and cures.”
Douglas and six other mechanical engineering undergraduate students took on the task of expanding on the design of the previous year’s motorized, controllable head support. The goal of the design project was to improve the prototype of the previous design and make a device that is able to take a wide variety of inputs, including eye gaze control, and is economically viable, durable and able to be mass produced.
Douglas was drawn to this project because it was at the stage where it needed refinement and design but could, after the completion of the year, be very close to really helping people who are suffering with ALS. He was also interested in the possibility of turning the project into an entrepreneurial venture. The team saw the project as an important proof of concept for eye-gaze tracking technology’s ability to control not just computers, but real world mechanical devices. In the future Graeham sees eye-gaze technology being used to control things as complicated as cars, further extending the quality of life for people with ALS who are left only with eye movement and giving them a way to interact and be a part of the world around them.
With fellow UBC student Andrei Pop coupled with Douglas’ entrepreneurial spirit, a business plan was drawn up for the neck brace which placed third in Western Canada in the Enterprise Canada Business Competition. The neck brace also won the 2010 Innovation Award from the ALS Society of BC.
Graeham is continuing to pursue a career in the biomedical engineering field, now working towards a Master in Biomedical Engineering at UBC and researching cardiovascular grafts as a treatment for aneurisms. After completing his Master’s he wants to continue to blend engineering and medicine while continuing as an entrepreneur creating new devices and technologies.
Toyer notes, “Patients volunteering to work with the students have told us that this was a very positive experience for them. We felt this is a win-win situation for all.”
There is no cure or effective treatment for ALS, patients become progressively more paralyzed as they lose neurons which control voluntary motor functions until they can no longer breathe or swallow on their own. The ALS Society of BC is part of the ALS Society of Canada , which was formed in 1977. The goals of the ALS society of BC are to provide direct support to the ALS community, to gather funds for research and patient services, and to increase public awareness of the disease
The mechanical engineering capstone design project is a year-long fourth-year course in which groups of students work with professional clients to produce products or prototypes, which are then expanded upon or implemented by the client.
To learn more about ALS and the ALS society of BC, visit www.alsbc.ca
To learn more about Capstone Design at UBC, visit: Capstone design project
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