Manipulation Performance and Satisfaction of the Computer Mouse Interface in the Cervical Spinal Cord Injury Patients.

, Eom, Gwang Moon; , Lee, Jong Min; , Kim, Chul Seung; , Kong, Se Jin; , Lee, Bum Suk; , Lee, Kyung Hee

Original Article

Journal of the Korean Academy of Rehabilitation Medicine 2006;30(3):230-235.

Eom, Gwang Moon , Lee, Jong Min , Kim, Chul Seung , Kong, Se Jin , Lee, Bum Suk , Lee, Kyung Hee

¹School of Biomedical Engineering, Konkuk University, Korea. gmeom@kku.ac.kr
²Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, National Rehabilitation Center, Korea.

경수 손상 환자에서 컴퓨터 마우스 인터페이스의 조작능력 및 만족도

엄광문, 이종민, 김철승, 공세진, 이범석¹, 이경희¹

건국대학교 의학공학부, ¹국립재활원 재활의학과

Abstract

Objective
This paper aims at investigating the fitness of available computer mouse interfaces to each level of cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) patients ranging from C4 to C7.
Method
Several commercially available computer mouse interfaces were selected for performance evaluation. They were head pointer, touch screen, button mouse, big-ball mouse, and mouse pad. Usual mouse with rubber pad was also tested for the C6-C7 SCI patients. The performance of each interface was evaluated in terms of average click rate of moving target box and patient's satisfaction.
Results
The results that the touch screen and the head pointer were superior to other interfaces in terms of clickrate. However, in terms of the satisfaction ratio, C4-C5 SCI patients preferred the head pointer and C6-C7 SCI patients preferred the big-ball mouse. The difference in click rate and satisfaction ratio was attributed to the convenience of the interface, i.e., the necessity and type of orthosis when using the mouse interface.
Conclusion
The results showed that the patients' preference was determined mainly by the convenience. Therefore, the convenience of the interface must be fully considered in the design and selection of computer interface for the SCI patients. (J Korean Acad Rehab Med 2006; 30: 230-235)

Key Words: Computer mouse interface, Spinal cord injury, Click rate, Preference