This past December 3, the CHUM Research Centre invited organizations specializing in supporting people with disabilities to celebrate International Day of Persons with Disabilities under the theme “Un monde plus inclusif, j’embarque.”

This activity aims to solidify the relationship between our work in the field of health research and the work of these organizations is part of CRCHUM’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) policy. It also contributes to the CHUM Disability Action Plan.

On this special day, the CRCHUM’s LIO research laboratory welcomed representatives from ROSEPH (Regroupement des organismes spécialisés pour l’emploi des personnes handicapées—Adeline Zilliox) and ASL (Autisme sans limites—Roger Galipeau).

During this visit, researchers David Labbé and Rachid Aissaoui presented their research focused on helping people with disabilities find balanced, healthy and sustainable mobility.

Better rehabilitation with an avatar

David Labbé and his team use virtual reality, a combination of sensory stimulation with the input of artificial intelligence, to recreate the patient’s body as an avatar. This avatar was designed so patients can shift their perception of their own movements.

For patients who are mobile, the avatar is controlled by their movements on a treadmill. For patients who cannot walk, the avatar is guided by a brain-computer interface. This unique approach was developed to give hope to patients through the exploration of new possibilities for their motor rehabilitation.

Simulating locomotion

Rachid Aissaoui and his team have developed a manual wheelchair propulsion haptic simulator. This simulator is equipped with an on-board computer, which can estimate, in real time, the articular effort in the upper limbs and the physiological cost necessary to move for people with reduced mobility.

The simulator also comes with an artificial intelligence based module capable of training users to better propel their wheelchairs and therefore to preserve the integrity of their joints.

Inclusion in the world of research

After visiting the laboratory, the organizations sat down to talk with Farrah Jean-Paul, Human Resources Advisor at the CRCHUM, on the opportunities available to the CRCHUM community to facilitate the inclusion and employment of people with disabilities.

This includes, two CRCHUM participations in DuoEmploi in 2023 and 2024 with ROSEPH, as well as a CRCHUM visit for youth accompanied by ASL this past June.

This event ended with a feedback session from the involved organizations at the Connection space in the CHUM library. ROSEPH and ASL presented examples of successful integration in employment and collaboration in research experiments to the two research teams from the LIO laboratory.

Members of the LIO laboratory’s student body, including postdoctoral fellows, actively participated in this day. These students are Iris Willaert, Valentin Vallageas and Billal Medbouhi from David Labbé’s team, and Clément Ghazouani from Rachid Aissaoui’s team.

According to Adeline Zilliox, Project Coordinator at ROSEPH, this day at CRCHUM allowed for the strengthening of relationships between the research world and the community itself. “This exchange with CRCHUM teams brought about amazing projects to integrate disabled people into their community.”

Roger Galipeau, Director of Services, Programs and Environments at ASL, found that coming to the CRCHUM on this internationally recognized day was a chance to discover a world of partnership opportunities for young people.

This event is sponsored by the CRCHUM DEI Committee.

Author: Nyanyui Siliadin, CRCHUM DEI Committee
Revision: Bruno Geoffroy