ALS Association ITP Internship Spring 2009<\/p>\n
The ALS Association is the only national not-for-profit voluntary health organization whose sole
\nmission is to find a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease) and improve
\nliving with ALS.\u00a0 ALS is a progressive neuromuscular disease that causes weakness in all
\nvoluntary muscles.<\/p>\n
In pursuit of our mission, we provide many services to patients with ALS.\u00a0 The service that the
\nintern will be involved in is our assistive technology program.<\/p>\n
The assistive technology program serves patients in a variety of ways, including conducting
\nhome visits to address different assistive technology needs, providing a wide variety of loan
\nequipment from our loan closets, as well as providing information with regard to every area of
\nassistive technology.<\/p>\n
The internship will provide the student with exposure to a variety of areas of assistive
\ntechnology.\u00a0 Also the intern will observe patient care at our Beth Israel ALS Certified Center, a
\nmultidisciplinary ALS clinic.<\/p>\n
The intern will have the opportunity to participate in home visits with the assistive technologist
\nas well as work on a special project.<\/p>\n
Examples of projects:
\n1. Reading books.\u00a0 A lot of our patients enjoy reading, and quickly their decrease in
\nphysical abilities prevents them from enjoying this leisure activity.\u00a0 There are some page
\nturners on the market, but they do not work well and are expensive.\u00a0 Most patients do not
\nlike audio tapes; they want to retain the idea of actually reading text as much as possible.
\nThis project would involve designing either a stand alone device or a computer interface
\nthat would provide access to physical books to ALS patients.\u00a0 Some work was done on
\nthis problem by a previous ITP intern, but much more development and user testing
\nneeds to occur to bring this project to prototype status.
\n2. Build a driving skills screening device.\u00a0 At our ALS Clinics patients are screened for their
\ncurrent physical abilities.\u00a0 Often the issue of driving comes up and we need a way to test
\nbasic physical abilities for driving.\u00a0 The project would involve researching required
\nreaction times and other physical\/perceptual requirements for driving.\u00a0 Then a physical
\ndevice would be built to test these abilities and give the patient feedback as to whether
\nthey have the basic abilities to continue driving.\u00a0 This is not a driving simulator, but a
\ndevice to test basic abilities required for safe driving.<\/p>\n
For more information, contact Antoinette Verdone: verdone@als-ny.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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