ON THE DETECTION OF EARLY DEMENTIA AND THE

COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR DEAF BLIND PERSON

Masahiro Aruga

1,4

, Takashi Takeda

Department of Human and Information Science, School of Information Science and Technology, Tokai University

Graduate school of Engineering, Tokai University, Kitakaname 1117

Hiratsuka-shi, Kanagawa-ken, Japan

Institute of Intelligent Communications (corporative NPO,Japan), Kashiwanoha 5-4-6

Kashiwa-shi, Chiba-ken, Japan

Shuichi Kato

3,4

Graduate school of informatics, Teikyo Heisei University, Uruido-Aza-Otani 2289-23

Ichihara-shi, Chiba-ken, Japan

Institute of Intelligent Communications (corporative NPO,Japan), Kashiwanoha 5-4-6

Kashiwa-shi, Chiba-ken, Japan

Keywords: The “YUBITSUKII”, the expanded EMR (Electronic or Electric Medical Record), the early dementia, the

Linux operating system, the blind deaf person, the detection system, the diagnosis system, the finger Braille.

Abstract: The “YUBITSUKII” is the personal digital assistant terminal developed as communication system for blind

deaf persons. The blind deaf persons have not been cared sufficiently until now. Therefore, they cannot fully

convey their thoughts and feelings and cannot freely live in their daily life. Generally, even their family

members cannot sufficiently know their capability of recognition of their outside. And it is difficult to

discover early dementia of the blind deaf persons. In this paper, it is considered and estimated that there is

some possibility of realization of the detection method and system of early dementia of the blind deaf

persons and others.

1 INTRODUCTION

The dementia is raised by the disease of brain and by

any other many reasons. It makes some difficulties

in the brain and nervous system, and the patients of

dementia lose their memories and discernments and

so on, which were obtained before, and have the big

difficulty on their ordinal life style. Especially the

Alzheimer’s disease arise the big obstacle on

memories for recognition, and it is the progressive

disease and the frequency of its arising becomes

higher and higher as the age becomes older and

older. And on this disease there is the case that it

cannot be found when and where this disease arises,

and this disease is the disease of nervous system

which has made some social problems nowadays.

The blind deaf persons are the handicapped persons

who have the double difficulties not only on the

sense of sight, but also on the auditory sense, and

recently their communication methods have been

developed, for example the finger Braille is one of

them. (see Figure 1, Figure 2). The blind deaf person

has the big difficulty on their ordinary life style that

not only they cannot sufficiently show their intention

to other people, but also cannot completely receive

the conversation contents of them. Therefore it is

very difficult that the situation of early dementia of

the blind deaf person is found and diagnosed. And

the” YUBITUKYI (the name of tool) ” developed as

the communication tool for the blind deaf person is

useful not only for the communication of the blind

deaf person but also for the diagnosis of disease in

connection with communication by using the

communication data measured via the use of tool.

(see Figure 2)

Therefore in this paper the orientation of design

of structuring the diagnosis system for early

dementia not only of the blind deaf person but also

of ordinary healthy people is so proposed as the

diagnosis system of early dementia is structured by

272

Aruga M., Takeda T. and Kato S. (2007).

ON THE DETECTION OF EARLY DEMENTIA AND THE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR DEAF BLIND PERSON.

In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - HCI, pages 272-277

DOI: 10.5220/0002359502720277

 SciTePress

点字凸側

点字凹側

3 2 1 4 5 6 6 5 4 1 2 3

左手左手右手右手

図 1 文字「カ」の点字と指点字との対応

Convex side Concave side

Braille Braille

The finger Braille

Left hand Right hand Left hand Right hand

embedding the “YUBITUKYI” as a module into the

expanded EMR (electronic or electric medical

record) system on the basis of Linux system. This

proposal has sufficient possibility and significance

by considering the differences of situation of

communication between ordinary healthy people and

the persons of Alzheimer’s disease as it is estimated

that the characteristics of Alzheimer’s disease show

amnesia, difficulty of recognition, difficulty of

behaviour and action and the progressive situation,

as a result, the clear difference of communicating

situation appears. Therefore discussing the

communication tools not from the point of view of

ordinary healthy people, but from the point of view

of handicapped persons (especially the blind deaf

persons) it is shown too that the system construction

of detection of early dementia of the blind deaf

persons is made possible by starting from the

analysis of the differences of communicating

situation among the ordinary healthy people and the

handicapped people, and by considering the

progressive and changing situation of

communication along the time passing.

2 THE “YUBITSUKYI” SYSTEM

AND THE

MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS

Nowadays it is as a matter of course that the medical

examination by interview to the blind deaf persons

cannot be sufficiently available between the doctor

and the blind deaf persons as they cannot completely

show and make their intention known to the doctor

and cannot completely receive the conversation

contents from the doctor on the scene of medical

treatment, and as it is estimated that the enough

transfer of diagnosis information is not made

possible. Therefore it is estimated that the medical

examination by interview to the blind deaf persons

becomes easy on the scene of medical treatment

reading the conversation contents by the use of the

functions of the “YUBITSUKYI” system,

transforming them into the phonetic sound or into

the image of letter by the use of information

processing technique, and transferring these data by

the use of the functions of network system. On the

basis of the communication technique of "finger

Braille", the “YUBITSUKYI” system has been

developed. In the finger Braille technique the six

fingers of right hand and left hand from the index

finger to the third finger are used totally and the

technique was designed by taking account of the

concept of the Braille system. Of course in Japan

such a system is adapted for Japanese language and

character pattern system. In the finger Braille

technique the direct touch method to a

communication partner’s fingers is used, and the

character patterns of one partner of transmission side

are sent to another partner to strike their fingers with

his/ her fingers directly corresponding to the Braille

rules. And in finger Braille technique there are

generally two kinds of form. The one is the

PERKINS SUBURERA formula in which the form

is read corresponding the form of the convex side of

Braille. The other one is the LIGHT BURERA

formula in which the form is read corresponding the

form of the concave side of Braille. In the Figure1

there is shown the "ka" of Braille of Japanese

character. When reading the communication signal

on the basis of the convex side of Braille, the

relation of corresponding signal between Braille and

hand fingers of the finger Braille can be shown like

the left figure of Figure1, in the same way, when

reading the communication signal on the basis of the

concave side of Braille, the relation of

corresponding signal between Braille and hand

fingers of the finger Braille can be shown like the

right figure of Figure1. As understanding from

Figure1, these two patterns of expression of the

Braille and the finger Braille are symmetric

respectively with regard to the corresponding

number positions of the expression patterns of a

character. The “YUBITUKYI” system is made using

this finger Braille forms of characters, this system

has the six vibrating points corresponding to the

pattern form of six fingers of the finger Braille and

can make mutual communications among users of it.

The “YUBITUKYI” is the name of mobile terminal

device of the “YUBITUKYI” system, and is

constructed with electrical devices and elements (of

course, at present yet being improved). Here not

reporting the engineering and technique details of

that system itself (they will be shown in other

papers.), the characters of “YUBITUKYI” are able

to be used as the function of a module of the Life

support system which has the diagnosis function and

is structured on the basis of the expanded Linux base

EMR system.

Figure 1: The correspondence of Braille and the finger

Braille.

ON THE DETECTION OF EARLY DEMENTIA AND THE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR DEAF BLIND

PERSON

273

As the data of a device “YUBITUKYI” are

electric signals and their transformed signals, these

data are put directly into the information processing,

although the data on the case of using only the finger

Braille are not able to be directly processed with

electric system.

Holding the joysticks of the “YUBITUKYI”

terminals with both hands the users can send and

receive the conversation signals from each terminals

to vibrate the vibrating points, for instance, when

transmitting communication signals, the users strike

1-6 vibrating points, on the other hand when wanting

to receive these signals, they can receive the

vibration of 1-6 vibrating points of the

“YUBITUKYI” terminals. As a result the mutual

communication among these users is able to be

easier than before. And as the “YUBITSUKYI”s are

portable terminals, the users can ordinarily and

freely walk carrying them, and can use them anytime

and anywhere. Especially the blind deaf person can

take communication easily and freely with this tool

the “YUBITUKYI” among others in any times, but

it was difficult for them to communicate among

others before the “YUBITUKYI” having been

developed. As the “YUBITUKYI” system has some

optional functions, for example, a REPEATER TAG

function, a BROADCASTY function etc, although

the blind deaf person was before able to know the

content of objects only by direct touching of it, after

developing the tool, they can know the content of

objects not to touch the objects directly by using the

repeater tag function as the” YUBITSUKYI” system

can receive a telegram message of Braille by

attaching a tag to every objects. Namely, by the use

of this function the blind deaf person can get the

present and surrounding information not to contact

the objects directly. Furthermore, with

BROADCASTY function the telegram messages

from “YUBITSUKYI” are received and translated

by the computer into finger Braille and these

translated messages are broadcasted, and moreover

these contents can be displayed by the text

documents. Even if a partner does not know finger

Braille technique, the natural communication among

people can be structured immediately using these

functions. Nowadays the blind deaf person's world

is covered calm and dark, and they are intercepted

from almost all information media, such as

television and newspaper and so on. Even talking

with their family is difficult. The “YUBITSUKYI”

system is the indispensable system for the blind deaf

person in order to act like a healthy person. Among

healthy persons, the equipment like the voice input

interface, such as a microphone, can be used in the

processing of communicating information. There the

uttered sound can be translated into finger Braille,

and it can be transmitted to the blind deaf person.

Therefore, if the characters of the “YUBITSUKYI”

system are embedded as a module into the Life

support system expanded from the EMR on the basis

of Linux system and such an equipment system as

the voice input interface is structured in the Life

support system, not only the communication among

the handicapped people themselves and ordinary

people but also the data processing of

communication are made possible and useful in

order to make the diagnosis of disease to affect the

communication because the “YUBITSUKYI”

system and the equipment system like the voice

input interface are structured in the Life support

system which can make information processing of

the data taken from the communication among the

handicapped people themselves and ordinary people.

The medical record of a hospital has been processed

electronically as IT has progressed. At that result, it

comes that a patient can also read the medical

record. The EMR system can store his/her medical

history, the present medicine, being allergy, and so

on. Moreover, it is made possible that using the

EMR system, the advice of meal and exercise which

suits a patient will be received timely. On automatic

voice guidance service seen recently the blind deaf

person cannot understand its massage directly. But

the “YUBITSUKYI” system can solve the problem

of such situation and make communicating situation

between the user and automatic voice guidance

service. And the “YUBITSUKYI” system can make

the measurement of needed factors possible as it is

embedded into the Life support system which can

make data processing. As a result the function of the

“YUBITSUKYI” system can make the measurement

of signal changing from ordinary situation using the

Life support system embedded by the

“YUBITSUKYI” system, when the other conditions

are added to the original signal. And it is estimated

that the diagnosis of early dementia not only of the

blind deaf person but also of the ordinary healthy

people is made possible not only by the use of

conversation on daily life and medical examination

by interview but also by using the information

obtained from the “YUBITSUKYI” system.

Moreover the possibilities of the Life support system

is increased by the use of the characters of the

“YUBITSUKYI” system embedded into it. Here the

changing data of communication during the situation

of dementia are abbreviated and the analyzing

methods of those data will be discussed and reported

ICEIS 2007 - International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

274

separately. (

Masahiro Aruga, S.Kato, et al, 2003),

( Masahiro Aruga,T.Takeda et al, 2006)

3 THE EXPANDED EMR SYSTEM

Today, introduction of the EMR system is advanced

all over the world. It is well known that the Linux

system is an open source operating system and the

characteristics of Linux system are advantageous

and able to be expanded as the base of the EMR

system, and at same time there is the expanding

possibility of the functional ability of the EMR

system. (

Masahiro Aruga, S.Kato, et al, 2003),

(

Masahiro Aruga,T.Takeda et al, 2006),( ( Masahiro

Aruga,Shinu Ryu et al, 2006))

Figure 2: The “YUBITSUKYI”.

Figure 3: The finger Braille.

Namely from these fundamental characters of Linux

system the fundamental ability of the EMR system

can be expanded. The idea of the expanded EMR

system involves the concept which has the character

of expansion and the system idea which is able to

change the organization of modern medical scene

and educational scene of society and the base of

recognition and senses of social system.

Front Back

Figure 4: The new version of the “YUBITSUKYI”.

In this paper the consideration of service function

for the blind deaf persons is mainly proposed using

the expanded EMR system and the comprehensive

life support system which has the concept of life

support and welfare system is introduced and

described. The target of the expanded EMR system

is decided to the Life support system and the

orientation of design of the system and the algorithm

of structuring the system are proposed. Especially in

this paper it is described that the “YUBITSUKYI”

system is embedded and the diagnosis of early

dementia is able to be made possible using the

embedded system, and the orientation of design and

the structuring process of that system are shown.

This measurement system image is shown in Fig. 5.

(

Yuhei Karato, M. Aruga et al,2006),( Shinwu Ryu, M.

Aruga et al, 2006),( Takashi.Takeda, M. Aruga et al,

2006)

4 THE EARLY DEMENTIA

DIAGNOSIS AND THE

COMMUNICATION

It is understood very important in order to detect the

symptoms of early dementia that the family

members or the close members take notice of their

Hai

ＪＥｃ

ON THE DETECTION OF EARLY DEMENTIA AND THE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR DEAF BLIND

PERSON

275

mutual ability of recognizing each others through

their mutual communication in their daily lives.

Nowadays it has become clear that the problem

action and the mental symptoms are able to be

mitigated by the communication method or by the

internal medicine, and such symptoms are not

necessarily appeared on the surface only by the

reason of changing situation of brain by the disease.

That is; it is seamed important in order to diagnose

the early dementia to consider such many elements

connected with communication as the human

relation, the environment and so on. Therefore, in

this paper firstly discussing how to reflect these

elements on the design of early dementia detective

system the following adjusted procedures are

described as the first step of performance of

designing. That is;

(A) Introducing the embedded algorithm which has

been in the expanded EMR system concept as

the expanding character of Linux system is

made the good use of.

(B) Reconstructing the algorithm to transfer and

receive the data of the “YUBITSUKYI” system

as it can be matched to the embedded algorithm.

system which is expanded by the

“YUBITSUKYI” system as the support system

for the blind deaf person and on this concept

analyzing the transferring data through this

module.

This processing is widely adapted not only to

the data of blind deaf person but also to the data

of ordinary healthy people and others if it can

be possible. This is the reason that after this the

real system synthesis is continued and the

consideration and discussion of the relation

between its data change of transferring process

and the diagnosis of early dementia are needed

at that time.

(D) Being based on the result of the above (C),

analysing those data and taking out important

and efficient factors to detect the early dementia.

After that, discussing the algorithm which can

reflect these factors on the diagnosis system of

early dementia although some algorithms are

estimated possible.

(E) Establishing the diagnosis and evaluation

method with which the observation of daily

activity of the blind deaf person is quantitatively

able to be made possible, and which is needed

on the case of proposing the direction of design

of the Life support system to adopt such

analysing results as the above processing

produces.

(F) Developing the analysing method with which

the necessary elements can be taken out from

the information in the data processed on the

basis of the algorithm of early dementia

diagnosis system in order to structure the

function of this Life support system on which

the quantitative diagnosis of daily activity of

people and its evaluation method is directly

reflected just as they are established. Next on

the basis of this analysing method performing

the target system design on which the

quantitative diagnosis and its evaluation method

is reflected.

As a result, it is proposed that the real target Life

support system should be synthesized according to

the above procedure to design the Life support

system. The Fig.5 shows the above procedure and

the idea of communicating environment connected

with the possibility of detecting the early dementia

until the realization of target is completed. As

understanding from the Fig.5 it is estimated that the

communication and transferring data by the

“YUBITSUKYI” system involve the elements of

detecting the early dementia.

Figure 5: The Life support system and the diagnosis of

early dementia.

5 THE CONCLUSION AND

FUTURE TASK

Before the “YUBITSUKYI” system was developed

the blind deaf persons were not sufficiently able to

communicate directly themselves and others.

Especially they could not make the direct

communication to a doctor when he needed their

medical examination by interview. But the

“YUBITSUKYI” system could make such

communication possible. Therefore, in this paper, it

was able to be reported that there were the

possibility that the system in which the

“YUBITSUKYI” system was embedded as a module

of the Life support system was useful for the

YUBITSUKYI

Bli nd Deaf Per son

Ot he r Pers ons

EMR Server

Da t a b as e

ICEIS 2007 - International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

276

detection of early dementia although it was

impossible before. As a result, the orientation to

design a system having the detecting functions of

dementia and early dementia situation was able to be

proposed by discussing and considering the

expanded EMR system reconstructed as the Life

support system.

In the future task, the “YUBITSUKYI” system

must be improved as being applied to other countries

(not only Japan), and the Life support system into

which the “YUBITSUKYI” system being embedded

must be realized concretely and by using that system

it must be taken to collect and analyze the data of

early dementia in detail.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank for much advices and helps of Mr.

K.Yokota who is a managing director of Japan

Ecology limited company and developed

'YUBITSUKYI', and Ms A.Itoh who is staff of

Japan Ecology limited company.

REFERENCES

Masahiro Aruga, S.Kato, H.Xiaodong, 2003, A study of

direction of a design of the electric medical record

system on the basis of Linux, The 2th United

Symposium Science Technology and Human, pp63-

66, Japan.

Masahiro Aruga, S.Kato, H.Xiaodong, K.Endou,

T.Nagashima, A.Kodama, H.Tsunekawa, 2003, On

the advantageous and expanded characteristics of the

electric medical record system on the basis of Linux,

The 2th United Symposium Science Technology and

Human ,pp59-62, Tokyo Japan.

Masahiro Aruga, Akira Kodama, Takashi Takeda, Shinu

Ryu, 2006, Dementia Support System and Ubiquitous

Model, Transactions of the Japanese Society for

Medical and Biological Engineering, p206,Fukuoka

Japan.

Masahiro Aruga, T.Takeda, S.Kato, 2006, A

Communication system taking account of the blind

deaf persons and the Life support system to be

expanded from Electric Medical Record system, The

th World Multi-Conference on Systemics,

Cybernetics and Informatics Proceedings Volume 2,

pp178-183, Orlando Florida USA.

Masahiro Aruga, Shinu Ryu, Shuichi Kato, 2006, A Life

support system expanded from the EMR on the basis

of Linux system and the consideration of essential

meaning of the Ubiquitous System, Joint 3

International Conference on Soft Computing and

Intelligence Systems and 7

International Symposium

on advanced Intelligent Systems Ver. CD-ROM, SA-

D3-4, Tokyo Japan.

Yuhei Karato, Yuya Usui, Rin Ri, Masahiro Aruga, 2006,

A consideration of the life support system and the

electronic medical record system model, 5

times The

21th Century United Symposium-Science Technology

and Human being-, Volume 5, pp61-64, Tokyo Japan.

Shinwu Ryu, Masahiro Aruga, 2006, A consideration of

the expanded EMR on the basis of Linux system and

the Ubiquitous system, 5

times The 21th Century

United Symposium-Science Technology and Human

being-, Volume 5, pp65-68, Tokyo Japan.

Takashi.Takeda, Masahiro Aruga, 2006, A consideration

of the communication system for Blind Deaf Person

and the detection of early dementia, 5

times The 21th

Century United Symposium-Science Technology and

Human being-, Volume 5, pp69-72, Tokyo Japan.

ON THE DETECTION OF EARLY DEMENTIA AND THE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM FOR DEAF BLIND

PERSON

277