Title :
A remotely powered and wirelessly controlled intraoral electrolarynx
Author :
Merlo, Mark ; Li, G.P. ; Bachman, Mark
Author_Institution :
Biomedical Engineering Department, University of California, Irvine, 92697 USA
Abstract :
Electrolarynx devices have restored the voice of many who would otherwise be unable to speak. Current intraoral electrolarynx devices either have unappealing transoral tubes or are too large to easily fit in the mouth. We introduce a novel, remotely powered and wirelessly controlled intraoral electrolarynx that addresses these issues. Due to its size, the intraoral part of the device is easily embedded into a maxillary denture or a dental appliance. Characteristics of the device, including operating distance, positional sensitivity and orientation sensitivity were investigated. The results show that the device can be remotely powered and wirelessly controlled for use as an intraoral electrolarynx. Speech intelligibility of the device is not presented, but will be in future studies.
Keywords :
Acoustic measurements; Acoustic transducers; Batteries; Dentistry; Home appliances; Mouth; Permanent magnets; Radio control; Speech; Thickness measurement; Computer Communication Networks; Computers; Denture, Complete; Electric Power Supplies; Electromagnetic Phenomena; Electronics, Medical; Humans; Laryngectomy; Larynx; Mouth; Speech, Alaryngeal; Telemetry;
Conference_Titel :
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2008. EMBS 2008. 30th Annual International Conference of the IEEE
Conference_Location :
Vancouver, BC
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-1814-5
Electronic_ISBN :
1557-170X
DOI :
10.1109/IEMBS.2008.4649950
