A Training System for Swallowing Ability by Visualizing the Throat Position

Nagisa Matsumoto, Chihiro Suzuki, Koji Fujita, Yuta Sugiura

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Our ability to swallow tends to decrease as we grow older. One reason for this is dysphagia, a condition that makes it difficult to swallow food well and causes malnutrition or food aspiration in severe cases. Therefore, preventing dysphagia is important in terms of maintaining quality of life. One way to prevent dysphagia is by using a throat raising exercise whereby we train our own throat muscles by consciously moving the throat. However, throat raising can be difficult because it is hard to see the motion of our own throat. In this work, we developed a system that helps users to move their own throat consciously. We designed a wearable device to visualize larynx position and a game to enhance user motivation. The proposed device measures the distance between skin surface and photo-reflective sensors and estimates the position of the larynx by means of a support vector machine. Experimental results showed that our proposed system can accurately estimate throat motion and that four out of five participants improved their ability to keep their throat in a high position for a long time by playing our proposed game. In future work, we will consider a system that can improve not only the muscle strength of the throat but also the comprehensive swallowing function.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDigital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management. Healthcare Applications - 10th International Conference, DHM 2019, Held as Part of the 21st HCI International Conference, HCII 2019, Proceedings
EditorsVincent G. Duffy
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages501-511
Number of pages11
ISBN (Print)9783030222185
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019
Event10th International Conference on Digital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management, DHM 2019, held as part of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCI International 2019 - Orlando, United States
Duration: 2019 Jul 262019 Jul 31

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume11582 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference10th International Conference on Digital Human Modeling and Applications in Health, Safety, Ergonomics and Risk Management, DHM 2019, held as part of the 21st International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCI International 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityOrlando
Period19/7/2619/7/31

Keywords

  • Exercise
  • Gamification
  • Wearable sensor

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • Computer Science(all)

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