An American scientist is going to unveil details of the work on Stephen Hawking's brain patterns which he said could help to safeguard the physicist's ability to communicate. Professor Philip Low said that he eventually hoped to allow Stephen to "write" words with his brain as an alternative to his current speech system which interprets his cheek muscle movements.
Prof Low said that the innovation would avert the risk of locked-in syndrome, however Intel is working on a different idea.
Prof Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 1963. In the 1980s he
was able to use slight thumb movements to move a computer cursor to write
sentences.
His condition got worse later on and he had to switch to a system which detects movements in his right cheek through an infrared sensor attached
to his glasses which measures changes in light.
Because the nerves in his face continue to deteriorate his rate of speech has
slowed to about one word a minute prompting him to look for an alternative.
By Andrew Barringer & Daniel Milnes
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