Assistive Technology for People With Traumatic Brain Injuries

The delivery of assistive technologies for people with brain injuries mandates a team approach involving therapists, counselors, physicians, engineers, and most importantly the person with a brain injury. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of health care professionals with the expertise to provide and train individuals with brain injuries in the application and usage of assistive technology (AT). This need is in part beginning to be addressed using telerehabilitation, which is expected to grow because remotely programmable devices such as smart phones, smart pads, and remotely controllable software become ubiquitous. Augmentative communication applications for individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) should include both low- and high-technology approaches. If a person has a very severe TBI, he or she may not be able to independently use a wheelchair or ambulate. A new emerging research area is the rehabilitation of persons with TBI using ubiquitous computing.