IMAGINE you open your mouth to speak but not a single word emerges. This is the distressing and frustrating situation faced by people who have had their larynx removed following cancer, disease or injury. To help them communicate they are often fitted with a valve in their throat to divert air from the lungs to the oesophagus when they exhale, generating a form of speech. But these valves tend to become clogged after only a few months and need to be replaced. So a team in the UK is developing a device that can detect and interpret facial movements when someone mouths a word, recognising what they are saying.
展开▼
