Development of a Tongue-Piercing Method for Use With Assistive Technology

Piercing the tongue for wearing jewelry is not infrequent among young adults.1,2 The procedure is not usually performed by medical personnel. A new assistive technology for people with tetraplegia, the Tongue Drive System (TDS), utilizes voluntary tongue movements for control.3 The operator uses a magnet attached to the tongue together with an externally mounted sensor array that detects changes in the magnetic field to drive powered wheelchairs and access computers.4 We hypothesized that a magnet-containing barbell would provide a semipermanent means of attaching the magnet to the tongue. Our aims were to design a medically appropriate tongue-piercing method and to confirm that using a magnet-containing tongue barbell works to control the TDS.