Offering a guiding hand

A Eugene-based scientist is testing a robotic device intended to help people improve their handwriting

Sue Palsbo watches 11-year-old Mizuel Alfaro as he tries out a device that her company has assembled to help people with their handwriting.

Rehabilitation scientist Sue Palsbo, of Eugene, says the new generation of interactive video games, such as Nintendo’s Wii, can be a lot more than just fun and games.
The gaming systems can be powerful, yet affordable, tools to improve the lives of people with disabilities and people who are recovering from injuries.
“You go to hospitals now and therapists are talking about ‘Wii-habilitation,’ ” Palsbo says. “The games engage adults and kids to move their bodies in ways that you’re trying to achieve with exercises, but people get bored with exercises.”
So about five years ago, when Palsbo spotted a device for telesurgery at a medical conference, she thought it could be adapted to help people improve, or regain, their ability to write.
Palsbo began to work on her idea and, later, the Canadian software engineer who had programmed the telesurgery device told her about the Novint Falcon, an inexpensive, off-the-shelf gaming accessory that could be modified for her purposes.
That put Palsbo, a research professor at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., on the path to create My Scrivener, a system to provide repetitive motion training for people who have trouble with fine-motor control of their hands.
Typically, such practice is provided by a therapist working hand-over-hand with a student or patient, which is labor intensive, costly and inexact.
Palsbo hopes My Scrivener will be a less expensive and more efficient way to help a wide range of people, from children with disabilities trying to print more legibly, to Iraq war veterans relearning how to write after suffering from traumatic brain injuries from roadside bombs.
Palsbo’s initial focus is to develop an instrument that therapists can use with children in the classroom. She’s also working with a group from George Mason University, including Lynn Gerber, director of the university’s Center for Study of Chronic Illness and Disability, to explore how the technology might be able to help wounded Iraq war veterans.
“It does have good application for the school environment,” Gerber said. “But if you look at it more broadly, as I did, it’s capable of doing many more things.”
In one fell swoop, she said, the device could be used as a therapeutical tool, it could provide a therapist or clinician with objective measures of a patient’s progress, and it has potential as a diagnostic tool to identify abnormalities in brain function.
Palsbo’s path to develop My Scrivener also led her and her family to Eugene from Virginia two years ago. Palsbo said she had long wanted to live in the Pacific Northwest, and her family has been happy with Eugene’s cultural opportunities and easy access to the ocean and the mountains. They plan to stay in the area and grow their business, Obslap Research, here.
(Palsbo’s first choice for a company name was taken, so she quickly had to come up with an alternative. Obslap is Palsbo in reverse.)
Ultimately, “our hope is we’ll find an investor, and we’ll build the company here, and we’ll be a going concern,” she said.
Last week, Sue, the company’s CEO, and her husband Art, its CFO, showed off My Scrivener to the Robotics Club at Kennedy Middle School.
Many of the club’s 20 members took turns typing in their names, then grasping the Bic pen inserted in the device as it marched across the page, leaving each name printed neatly in blue ink.
“Even robots have better handwriting than I do,” cracked one of the middle schoolers.
It has taken two years for Palsbo, with $575,000 in funding from two Small Business Innovation Research grants from the U.S. Department of Education, to reach this point. And there’s still a long way to go before the invention will be ready to market next year.
“As a research scientist, I’m totally committed to evidence-­based research,” Palsbo said. “I do not want to put something out that looks really cool and really spiffy, but doesn’t actually improve fine-motor skills.”
Palsbo also recognizes therapists’ need for the system to include objective measures of legibility.
To create those, Palsbo plans to study the variability in the handwriting of typically developing children with good penmanship. Palsbo is recruiting 18 such children from the local area — three each from kindergarten to grade 5 — to spend about 20 minutes writing with My Scrivener during the winter holiday break. Each of those students will receive a $20 gift certificate from Smith Family Bookstore, Palsbo said. Families with children who are interested in participating may contact Palsbo at 505-7591.
Then, in February or March, Palsbo will begin research trials with 60 local children in special education classes, whose individualized education plans include a goal to improve handwriting. The kids will use My Scrivener for about 30 minutes a day for three weeks, she said.
Palsbo also will be seeking FDA approval of My Scrivener as a medical device.
“If scientific study can prove it’s safe and effective, that the therapists like it and can use it, then at that point we’d seek investors,” she said.
Palsbo has collaborated with numerous partners to create My Scrivener.
George Mason University filed the patent application and will license the intellectual property back to Obslap Research exclusively, Palsbo said.
Palsbo contracted with Oregon State University’s Mechanical, Industrial, & Manufacturing Engineering department to create the attachment to the Novint gaming accessory. The system’s software was developed under contract by the Eugene firm Lunar Logic.

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Rehabilitation scientist Sue Palsbo, of Eugene, says the new generation of interactive video games, such as Nintendo’s Wii, can be a lot more than just fun and games. The gaming systems can be powerful, yet affordable, tools to improve the lives of people with disabilities and people who are recovering from injuries. “You go to hospitals now and therapists are talking about ‘Wii-habilitation,’ ” Palsbo says. “The games engage adults and kids to move their bodies in ways that you’re trying to achieve with exercises, but people get bored with exercises.” So about five years ago, when Palsbo spotted a device …