David Ferris, a 22-year-old man who was disabled in a car accident four years ago, can barely move or speak. He got a $15,000 Eyegaze System in April after his home state of Maine decided to begin paying for such systems through its Medicaid program.
The letters of the alphabet, along with punctuation symbols and commands, line up in white on the black computer screen in front of him. By moving one eye -- the movements are read by a video camera into a PC -- Ferris can move the cursor across the screen, letter to letter, spelling out words, sentences, and messages. With the Eyegaze System, he can communicate with staff at his rehabilitation facility and send email to family and friends. Some users report they can type up to 40 words a minute.
"He can be online," said Ferris' father, Herb Ferris. "You can hook [the system] to another computer. His eyes become the mouse. And he can look at [his] computer and make the cursor move on the other computer and open icons and do anything that we can do with a computer, strictly with his eyes. There's no end to possibilities."
Regaining a voice
Eyegaze is also equipped with voice synthesis technology, which speaks for the user.
"My name is David," the voice said after Ferris moved the cursor to that statement with his eye. His Eyegaze is programmed with other responses that he can trigger. Responses include "yes" and "no," of course, but also, "I am 22 years old. I have lived here for four years. I like being with my family and taking walks outside. I used to play football and I used to be a musician in the band. I would like something to drink, please."
Eye tracking technology has been around for years. The Pentagon studied it in the 1960s as part of research to let fighter pilots fix on targets without using their hands.
In the Eyegaze System, a video camera under the computer monitor is equipped with an infrared light-emitting diode, or LED. The LED bounces light off of the user's cornea and retina. The camera records the reflections and sends the signals to proprietary software, which moves the cursor -- a red dot on the screen -- to the spot the user is looking at.
Practice makes perfect
For Ferris it isn't easy. He must practice at least an hour a day with the system, five days a week. A slight move of his head -- which is propped up in his wheelchair by a headrest with a brace -- can take his eye out of the video camera's frame and stop the system from working. After about an hour, his eye can tire and he has trouble moving it around the computer screen.
"It takes a lot of practice," said Ferris' speech and language pathologist, Margot Menard. "This is almost another language and it will take several years, actually, to get [him] up to using it proficiently."
But she says Ferris works hard and is determined to master the system.
"Sometimes the edge of his glasses get in the way," she said. She adds that she hopes he will be using Eyegaze for all of his communications by the end of the year. It will replace a handheld chart covered with symbols and common-use phrases that he carries in his lap and struggles to point to when he wants to communicate.
Ferris is counting on the technology to fulfill his dream. He wants "to go to college," he said with the voice synthesizer.
The developer of Eyegaze, privately held LC Technologies of Fairfax, Virginia, estimates that the system could help 250,000 to 500,000 people with severe brain injuries, Lou Gehrig's disease, and other crippling conditions.
"People have written books with this system," said Nancy Cleveland, medical and technical coordinator for LC Technologies. "There are people that are paralyzed and unable to speak, unable to move anything. But their eyes work, and they're working full time, and this is their access method."
The company, with about $1 million in annual revenue, has sold only about 300 systems since it began developing it 15 years ago. But that could be changing.
Making it more available
With heavy lobbying by LC Technologies and advocates for the disabled, Medicaid programs in Virginia and Nebraska, as in Maine, have recently agreed to pay for such systems for the disabled, and other states are considering it as well. Separately, several states have started funding purchases under "vocational rehabilitation" programs. And in January the federal government's Medicare program decided to start paying for it, too, Cleveland says.
Now that eye tracking has improved thanks to better software and equipment, the Pentagon is studying it again. Earlier this year, LC Technologies won a contract from the Army to research the possible use of its system in letting soldiers target weapons from tanks and other vehicles "hands free."
Now David Ferris can even play videogames with the system. "Wow -- 100 points," his computer voice said in a demonstration.
When asked how he likes the technology, Ferris' eyes jump across the computer screen, typing out his answer. "Wonderful," his computer voice said.
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