Dr. Stefanie Blain-Moraes
Associate Professor, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy
Associate Member, Department of Medicine, Division of Experimental Medicine
The BIAPT lab applies physiological signal processing techniques and assistive technology design principles to address the needs of non-communicative, dependent individuals and their care providers. We aim to create technologies that interpret physiological signals of non-communicative individuals in ways that are meaningful to both lay and professional care providers; and to use these technologies to improve both quality of life and medical practices.
1. Biomusic
Biomusic is a novel technology that translates significant changes in physiological signals into musical output. Biomusic has been shown to increase the sense of presence and personhood of persons who have diverse communicative capacities by enabling others to “tune in” to meaningful changes in an individual’s physiological state. Using a participatory design approach, the BIAPT lab is developing biomusic with a variety of users, including individuals with autism, individuals with dementia, parents of children in complex continuing care, and individuals in pediatric palliative care.
2. Assessing Consciousness
Assessing the level of consciousness and establishing a prognosis for recovery of consciousness in patients who are behaviourally unresponsive are fundamental shortcomings of clinical practice. Significant progress has been made in the neuroscience of consciousness, resulting in highly accurate diagnostic and prognostic indices in patients with a disorder of consciousness. However, the majority of these indices rely on specialized technologies that are challenging to integrate into everyday clinical environments. The BIAPT lab is working on developing translational indices that overcome this problem.