“S.I.M.p.L.E.” project

The SIMpLE (Smart solutIons for health Monitoring and independent mobility for Elderly and disable people) project stems from the need to ensure a better quality of life and promote greater social inclusion for all people with severe motor disabilities, through the use of synergies deriving from the engineering and medical fields.

The project proposes the development of a complex electronic device, to be integrated as an accessory device to normal electric wheelchairs, capable of improving mobility both in the home (indoor) and urban (outdoor). Furthermore, this device will be able to monitor some vital physiological parameters of users in real time, in order to guarantee high safety conditions, both outdoors and indoors. To complete the device, an electronic control session will also be prepared for the management of alarms for the activation of emergency calls together with the automatic location of the wheelchair in the outdoor environment.

The device will extend the functionality of currently available electric wheelchairs by including autonomous mobility functions, such as route planning, automatic obstacle avoidance, automatic location tracking, together with innovative control techniques via brain-computer interface (Brain Computer Interface – BCI): all this will allow the management of the movement of wheelchairs to all those subjects suffering from totally disabling symptoms also of the upper limbs, or not able to independently control the wheelchair itself.

The system will represent a valid aid for people with disabilities both in the lower and upper limbs and in particular it will be aimed at people suffering from neurodegenerative / neuromuscular diseases, such as, for example, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), spinal muscular atrophy (SMA , spinal muscolar atrophy), multiple sclerosis (MS), muscular dystrophy (DM), people with spinal core injury (SCI) caused, for example, by trauma or traffic accidents, and elderly people with severe impairment of neuro-motor system.

During the entire design and implementation process of the proposed system, the guidelines dictated by medical and social care consultants will be strictly observed in order to strictly comply with the dictates of the ethical component. By doing so, this device will meet the technical requirements suggested by medical specialists who, throughout the project phase, will check its actual functionality according to appropriate clinical trial paradigms.

The project is part of the Assistive Technology (AT), that is to say in the sector that includes assistance, adaptation and rehabilitation devices for people with disabilities in order to favor assistance, learning, use of an environment more accessible, the improvement of one’s independence and quality of life. The project will lead to the creation of an aid that is fully compatible with the user’s abilities, thanks to the use of advanced and reliable technologies to ensure greater autonomy for users, guaranteeing high safety standards both in the home and in the city, by monitoring in real-time patient health status.