The purpose of this study is to help the severely handicapped persons who are in the state of quadriplegia due to high cervical spinal cord injury, head injury, myopathy, etc. by developing pneumatically-operated Environmental Control System (ECS) for operating an interphone, a TV, a radio, a ceiling lamp, a table lamp, a fan, an electric curtain and an electric bed.

The ECS used in this study were designed in cooperation with Department of Rehabilitation Medicine and Department of Physics, Catholic University Medical College (1986. 3-1987. 8.).

The authors used an ECS which performed 10 different functions in a case of C5 quadriplegic patient who is 60 years old.

From August 1987 to May 1988, the authors studied for the efficacy of the ECS.

After the use of the ECS (1988.3.14-5.13), via the adaptational period for about 20 weeks, the quadriplegic patient had many psychological benefits such as a heightened sense of independency, a reduction of frustration and practically the numbers of help demands was reduced, compared with before the use of the ECS (1987. 8. 21-10.20), from 87.1 times a day to 42.0 times a day (48.2%).

Keywords :Environmental control system, Quadriplegia, Rehabilitation, Spinal cord injury