ALS Patient builds electronic automation system for houses

The PEAC system uses a wireless signal which allows its users to perform house tasks such as opening and closing doors, calling an elevator, and operating the TV and lights. They carry out these tasks with small movements of their eyes - or, for some patients, using brain waves.

When Steve was diagnosed, in 2006, the doctors told that he had three to five years to live. The patient was not willing to accept this, so he began researching his options to determine the best approach to surviving his incurable condition.

"From the beginning, I was determined to live another 38 years," the architect explained.

As he began his research for solutions, after realizing he couldn’t find a cure, but could figure out how to improve his quality of life despite of his disease, he met other ALS patients. Steve realized that many of these patients had 24-hour home care or were confined to beds in nursing homes, soiling their own sheets, with extremely limited person-to-person contact.

"Our society treats prisoners with more dignity and respect than the chronically disabled, kept alive but with no life. I knew that I had to work quickly to avoid their fate", the inventor said.

Steve met Barry Berman, the CEO of the Chelsea Jewish Foundation, an assisted-living facility in Massachusetts. Berman was developing a new kind of nursing home that he called a GreenHouse, specializing in the care of young people with disabilities, particularly ALS and multiple sclerosis.

With a grant of $500,000 from Berman, the architect started designing an electronic automation system – PEAC - with the goal of creating a nursing residence that would feel like home, empowering the patients by making them more independent. The system allows patients with ALS to control their environment in the assisted living center movements such as blinks and facial twitches. They can open and close doors, turn on and off lights, change TV channels, and control heat and air-conditioning, among other things.

The Steve Saling ALS Residence opened in Chelsea in February 2010, the first long-term care facility designed for people with this disease. The patients can navigate around the residence by themselves and have visitors.

"Don't make the mistake that all of my doctors did and assume that because I am 100% dependent on the care of others for the rest of my life, that I don't have a quality of life. I can't imagine enjoying life more”, Steve observed.

Adapted from: http://cnn.it/2nEJVAD

More info: http://www.alsri.org
https://youtu.be/4eAdgUm_-38