Authors (including presenting author) :
Chan KLM(1), Shum MHH (1), Yu KPJ(1), Yeung KYW(1)
Affiliation :
Community Rehabilitation Service Support Centre, Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Introduction :
For people with severe disability, seeking help and calling an emergency is always the most important communication function for them (Shane et al., 2012). The patients are always limited by their limbs or posture control. With advancement of technology and 3D printing, patient with various diseases resulting in non-communicable could be benefited from using adapted switch and special designed call bell. The clients with sensory-motor dysfunction or chronic illness which limit their limbs control and communication are our potential clients.
Objectives :
This project aims at exploration of the effective and efficient way to facilitate the client to notify the care taker with the call bell.
Methodology :
The clients who suffer from communication problem and have difficulty to notify their care taker will be recruited. The design of call bell would be mainly modified from commercial product that could easily find in daily market. With considering different physical condition of each patient, the case therapist will carry out assessment with the clinical engineer to identify the most reliable and accurate control mechanism. The tailor made call bell would be fabricated after the assessments. From the past two years, we had been made 4 types of call bell for each patient by adding: (1) special designed switch with jack head plugin; (2) delay function (e.g. 2 second delay to prevent accidentally pressing of call bell); (3) signal indicator (e.g. to let user know whether they were successfully pressing the button) and (4) mechanical activation (for mechanical call bell in the market). Training on application would be provided for each patient and the care taker.
Result & Outcome :
12 clients who suffered from spinal cord injury; neuromuscular disease; spinal muscular atrophy and high level tetraplegia are recruited. All of the clients are able to perform independent call bell activation after 15 minutes training session with their own tailor-made switch adaptation. Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) is done and the client’s score improve from 40 to 50 (p< 0.05). For the people with poor hand function and no speech, they had difficulty in activating the wireless call bell and ask for assistance. After the adaptation, they could use their residual function and body parts such as chin, lower jaw, foot, dorsum of hand to activate specially designed call bell. It enhances the caring and home safety of the client.
