TECHNOLOGY

Technology & Innovations

Paralyzed man communicates via thought

By Lauran Neergaard

In a medical first, researchers harnessed the brain waves of a paralyzed man unable to speak — and turned what he intended to say into sentences on a computer screen.

The study, reported in July, marks an important step toward one day restoring more natural communication for people who can’t talk because of injury or illness.

“Most of us take for granted how easily we communicate through speech,” said Dr. Edward Chang, a neurosurgeon at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the work. “It’s exciting to think we’re at the very beginning of a new chapter, a new field” to ease the devastation of patients who lost that ability.

Today, people who can’t speak or write because of paralysis have very limited ways of communicating. For example, the man in the experiment, who was not identified to protect his privacy, has been using a pointer attached to a baseball cap that lets him move his head to touch words or letters on a screen. Other devices can pick up patients’ eye movements.

While these methods have some effectiveness, they are frustratingly slow and a limited substitution for speech.

Translating thought into action

Tapping brain signals to work around a disability is a hot field. In recent years, experiments with mind-controlled prosthetics have allowed paralyzed people to shake hands or take a drink using a robotic arm — they imagine moving, and those brain signals are relayed through a computer to the artificial limb.

Chang’s team built on that work to develop a “speech neuroprosthetic” — decoding brain waves that normally control the vocal tract, the tiny muscle movements of the lips, jaw, tongue and larynx that form each consonant and vowel.

Volunteering to test the device was a man in his late 30s who, 15 years ago, suffered a brain-stem stroke that caused widespread paralysis and robbed him of speech.

The researchers implanted electrodes on the surface of the man’s brain, over the area that controls speech.

A computer analyzed the patterns when he attempted to say common words such as “water” or “good,” eventually becoming able to differentiate between 50 words that could generate more than 1,000 sentences.

Prompted with such questions as “How are you today?” or “Are you thirsty?” the device eventually enabled the man to answer “I am very good” or “No, I am not thirsty” — not voicing the words but translating them into text, the team reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It takes about three to four seconds for the word to appear on the screen after the man tries to say it, said lead author David Moses, an engineer in Chang’s lab. That’s not nearly as fast as speaking, but quicker than tapping out a response.

In an accompanying editorial, Harvard neurologists Leigh Hochberg and Sydney Cash called the work a “pioneering demonstration.”

They suggested improvements, but said if the technology pans out it eventually could help people with injuries, strokes or illnesses like Lou Gehrig’s disease whose “brains prepare messages for delivery, but those messages are trapped.”

Years of research

Chang’s lab has spent years mapping the brain activity that leads to speech.

First, researchers temporarily placed electrodes in the brains of volunteers undergoing surgery for epilepsy, so they could match brain activity to spoken words. Only then was it time to try the experiment with someone unable to speak.

How did they know the device interpreted his words correctly? They started by having him try to say specific sentences such as, “Please bring my glasses,” rather than answering open-ended questions until the machine translated accurately most of the time.

Next steps include ways to improve the device’s speed, accuracy and vocabulary size — and maybe one day allow a computer-generated voice rather than text on a screen. —AP

Who gets the keys to your digital estate?

By Liz Weston

You may not own cryptocurrency or run an online business. But if you do almost anything online, you probably have digital assets — electronic records that you own, control or license.

Failing to make arrangements for those assets while you’re alive could result in unnecessary costs, stress and heartache to those you leave behind.

Online photo and video collections could be lost forever. Heirs could also be locked out of electronic records with monetary value, such as cryptocurrency and frequent flyer miles. Email and social media accounts could be hacked.

Even basic tasks, such as paying bills online or canceling online subscriptions, may be difficult or impossible if you haven’t made arrangements.

“There would be no way for someone to know how I pay bills unless they could access my online account and my emails,” said Abby Schneiderman, co-founder of Everplans, a site for creating end-of-life plans and storing documents.

“And if it takes you a while to access these accounts, you’re going to realize afterwards, ‘Well, we’ve lost thousands of dollars on services we don’t use or don’t need anymore, because we can’t access them.’”

Here’s what you should consider and do to make this job easier for your descendants:

Provide logins to your executor

In the past, your executor — the person entrusted with settling your estate after your death — probably could have figured out what you owned and owed by rummaging through the papers in your filing cabinet and the bills in your mail, said Sharon Hartung, the author of two books for financial advisors, Your Digital Undertaker and Digital Executor. That’s no longer the case.

“Because our digital assets tend to be virtual in nature, an executor is not going to find them in a search of our home office,” Hartung said. “We’re going to have to leave some additional instructions on what we’ve created and how the executor is supposed to get access.”

Google and Facebook are among the few online providers that allow you to appoint someone to manage your accounts if you become incapacitated or die. Apple recently announced plans to add a similar feature.

The vast majority of online providers don’t have this option, however. Complicating matters further, almost all providers prohibit sharing passwords.

Typically, executors can’t demand access to your digital assets unless you specifically give them authority to do so in your will or living trust. Even then, a provider’s terms of service may limit what the executor can do and hinder them from carrying out your wishes.

So, giving your executor your login credentials may be the easiest way to make sure they can carry out your wishes, estate planning experts say.

Share an inventory and passwords

The first step in creating a plan for your digital assets is to make a list of them.

Searching online for a “digital assets inventory” will turn up some worksheets, including a detailed one created by the trade organization Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, or STEP. It allows you to list your accounts, usernames and, if desired, your passwords.

Don’t forget to include access to your devices. If you have two-factor authentication set up on accounts to verify your identity — and typically you should — your executor will need the passcode to unlock your phone or other device that receives the authentication code.

You may also want to leave a letter of instruction telling your executor about your wishes for various assets — what to delete, what to archive and what to transfer to heirs, for example.

Another option is to keep your login credentials in a password manager such as LastPass or 1Password.

These tools typically have a “notes” field that would allow you to include details about how you’d like the account to be handled. You would need to provide your executor with the master password, which could be included in the letter of instruction.

By Margaret Foster

Continuous blood glucose monitors for diabetics

People with diabetes must manage their blood sugar levels around the clock.

Rather than pricking their fingers many times a day, some diabetics use continuous glucose monitors to track their blood sugar levels. These monitors have been around since 1991, when the FDA approved the first one for home use. Today, popular monitors include Dexcom G6, Medtronic Guardian Connect, Omnipod Dash and Freestyle Libre.

The most affordable monitor is Freestyle Libre. Users wear a sensor on their upper arm with a small, retractable needle. To read current blood sugar levels, just wave a smartphone or tablet over the sensor. One model even notifies your doctor of your glucose levels over a period of time.

Since the device isn’t connected to an insulin pump, however, you still have to administer insulin shots.

Some continuous glucose monitors are covered by Medicare. According to Freestyle Libre’s website, “most privately insured patients end up paying between $0 and $60 per month for FreeStyle Libre 2 sensors, and no more than $65 for a FreeStyle Libre 2 reader.”

Free e-books

OverDrive is a website that allows you to borrow free e-books from libraries in our area. OverDrive also produces an app called Libby, which can facilitate the same process.

To start, visit the website, overdrive.com/ libraries, and search for your library. Then you’ll see an array of book covers available at your library. Some are even audiobooks, which you can listen to on your computer or smartphone.

After you’ve entered your library card number and PIN (usually your birth year), you can borrow any book for up to three weeks, just like a regular book. When the book is due, though, you don’t have to return it; the title simply disappears from your device.

You can read books on your Kindle, iPad, smartphone or simply the library’s OverDrive website. If you’re confused, call your local librarian.

The Alexandria Public Library has several free training videos available for everyone at bit.ly/aboutoverdrive.

Digital Estate

From page 4 mation such as passwords in your will, since that document becomes public after you die. Instead, store the inventory and letter of instruction with your other estate planning documents in a secure location, such as with your attorney or in a home safe, and let your executor know where to find it.

You also could upload the information to an online storage site, such as Everplans or LifeSite, which allows you to give a trusted person access to the documents.

Consider reviewing the inventory at least once a year and make any needed updates. You’ll rest easier knowing your loved ones won’t be locked out of your digital life.

“Creating a roadmap is really important so that there are no surprises, no tears, that there’s as little stress as possible,” Schneiderman said. —AP/NerdWallet

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