Much of Eric’s assistive technology is geared toward a living arrangement that “very few quads are doing in this whole country, probably.” Eric lives alone in a fully detached house, in spite of a spinal cord injury that left him with no movement below his shoulders. His 17 years of experience with his injury have taught him to seek out simple devices that support his specific needs and to resist complicated devices that don’t add to his independence. Eric looks for new technology on the Internet, in magazines and by communicating with other individuals with quadriplegia. As he says, “I think if you have a need, you start looking for what will solve the problem. And usually, someone else will have the same problem and might have already solved it well.” This idea comes through again and again in Eric’s descriptions of his experiences dealing with assistive technology.
Go directly to:
Eric has attendants who visit several times a day to take care of his daily living needs. Beyond that, he is on his own, day and night. For emergencies at night, Eric has a subscription to a phone monitoring service. He has a puff switch mounted near his head while he’s in bed. A puff of breath puts him in direct voice contact with a dispatcher who has a list of phone numbers to call on his behalf. When the service picks up the line, they ask if he’s okay. If he doesn’t respond they will call the people on his list starting at the top. He can also tell them to call a specific person on the list. He found out about this service through a magazine. From Eric’s perspective, “It’s the thing that allows me to live alone—not to have a babysitter at night.”
The tilt and recline feature on Eric’s wheelchair is vital to his health and independence. It allows him to shift his weight on his own by putting himself into recline for five minutes every half hour, which ensures adequate blood circulation to all parts of his body. Without it, Eric is sure that he would be getting pressure sores that would put him in the hospital. Living alone wouldn’t be feasible either—he’d have to have someone in all the time to help him shift his weight.
In Eric’s view, tilt and recline is very important but often overlooked. It may double the price of a chair, but it probably costs more to be hospitalized for pressure sores. His advice for new consumers is simple. “I would tell any quad to get a recline. I think it’s well worth it.”
Another adaptive device that allows Eric to be alone for longer periods is an automatic leg bag emptier. He saw one in a magazine and bought two—the one he’s still using and another for back up. He can open the clamp on the bag and empty it himself with a puff of breath on a tube mounted on his chair. A unique quality of this product is its simplicity; the valve is controlled mechanically by his breath pressure. It’s lasted 15 years so far and he hopes it will last many more. He doesn’t like the electric bag emptiers that are available now. They have to be plugged into the wheelchair battery, an unnecessary complication from Eric’s point of view. The mechanical version does the job, and it saves him from having to rely on someone else for this essential task.
Video:
|
The door opener on Eric’s front door is “a big deal” because he can go in and out of the house when no one is around. He operates it on his way out by tapping a switch with the footrest on his wheelchair. To come back in, he simply pushes against the door and it opens automatically. He’s set it up to suit his own need. Normally the switch is placed so that it can be activated with the touch of an arm or hand. He doesn’t use any type of remote control from his chair to operate it. As long as it works for him, he’s not inclined to change anything.
Video:
|
Another simple device that contributes to Eric’s independence at home is a mechanism that he invented to pull his blanket on and off when he is in bed. It saves him having to call somebody if he gets too hot or too cold at night. Basically, it’s a clothesline on pulleys. One end is permanently attached to the wall and he has the attendant attach the other end to his chair, which is parked next to the bed. The attendant also clamps the edge of his blanket to the clothesline so he can take the blanket on and off during the night by pulling on the line with his teeth.
The computer and the Internet are probably the most used tools in Eric’s house. He spends an average of three to four hours online every day. To him, “it just opens up the world.” Eric speaks enthusiastically about the information available to him on the Internet. “One of the neatest things about it is that anything that pops into your mind, you can investigate it. You know, it’s just like an oracle.” Communicating in email listserves, chat groups and newsgroups are another big plus. “Suddenly you can communicate with other people within interest groups. You know, geography becomes irrelevant … you can either join a bunch of quads and learn some quad stuff or any other interest you might have.” Access to the Internet has helped him discover some of the assistive devices he uses today, including his current chair and the foam he uses for seating. He’s also met people on the net who’ve helped him solve problems related to keyboard access on the computer itself.
In many ways, the computer provides Eric with a foundation for independent living in his home. He buys clothes and other household items off the Internet; it’s an easy way to shop without having to go anywhere. Also, an interface installed in the computer allows him to turn different lights on and off automatically at set times during the day and at night, which is a very useful device for someone living alone.
Eric got his first computer through a friend’s father back in 1989. He helped Eric set it up. Since then he’s had three or four. Eric is entirely self taught—he’s learned all he knows about the computer from reading manuals and trying things out. When he got this first computer, he typed with a mouthstick.
Eric first saw speech recognition technology demonstrated on TV one day and decided to pursue it. His first speech recognition system allowed him to write without having to tap keys, but didn’t give him a convenient way to use the mouse on newer Windows-based software. He switched to the one he uses now because it has commands that let him navigate between different programs on screen. Like the first one, he found out about this system when he saw it on TV. He bought it off the Internet.
Video:
See Eric using his touch sensitive keyboard. Choose a format: |
Eric’s decisions about adaptive technology for the computer, like everything else, are based on a combination of perception, experience and a desire to problem solve. He explains the switch from mouthstick to speech recognition this way: “When you don’t know better, it’s pretty swell, but … you really feel like a chicken pecking away with a stick in your mouth, peck, peck, peck. Speech recognition is also less of a strain than working with a mouthstick because you don’t have to keep moving your head up and down. In effect, you can probably write twice as fast and use the time you’ve saved that way to do other things besides.”
In addition to the speech recognition software, Eric uses a specially designed keyboard with a stylus that allows him to type without having to apply any pressure. This keyboard has metal pads instead of keys, and as soon as he touches a pad with the stylus (attached to the end of a mouthstick), the corresponding keystroke gets entered. He uses this no-pressure keyboard as a backup method when his speech recognition program fails.
Eric is happy with the speech recognition he has now because it meets all his needs. The software is a little bit older and he has to pause between words to give the program time to recognize. That doesn’t bother him because the newer products that allow you to dictate by speaking continuously do not have the same ability to control the computer by voice; they are designed primarily for writing. These products are not generally able to make the computer accessible in the “hands-free” way that his current software can. He’s also “real big on mouse alternatives.” There’s a keystroke equivalent for nearly everything a mouse can do that is often faster and simpler to apply.
Video:
|
Eric bought his phone from a catalog. He likes it because it has a full keyboard like a typewriter that allows you to call people by name instead of by number. To initiate a call, he uses his mouthstick to type in the first several letters of a person’s name on the keyboard. The telephone automatically calls the first person whose name matches what he is typing. The phone has a speakerphone feature, which Eric uses, but he can also talk through the receiver, which is mounted on a gooseneck in just the right position for him to pull up to.
Video:
|
For Eric, mouthsticks are one of those assistive devices where simple has turned out to be best. An occupational therapist gave him a homemade rubber and bamboo version that he prefers to the manufactured types, which have a larger rubber grip designed to be clenched between the teeth. It’s a lot easier to use because it’s more flexible and you can move it farther from side to side than you can with the fitted version.
Eric keeps his mouthsticks in several places according to their use—one near the phone, another by the TV and a third in the area where he reads books and magazines. He uses a mouthstick to turn pages. Most of the time, an inexpensive bible stand serves as Eric’s reading platform, another simple device that he discovered a long time ago, and still uses often.
Eric is now on his fourth chair. He likes it because it’s more powerful than his previous chairs. The chair is a different make but has same basic design and dimensions as the others, and many parts are interchangeable. Familiarity was an important factor in Eric’s decision. “Since I knew that worked, I didn’t want to risk new technology and get something that I was less happy with.”
Function and simplicity in a chair are important to Eric. “I like a clean look from my chair … you see some chairs and they have like lights and doohickeys and all kinds of headrests, you know, dominating behind your head and this sort of thing. And basically I get a chair and see what junk I don’t need and start taking it off.” One of the parts that Eric didn’t want was the status display box, which tells you what mode the chair is in. As he says, “You don’t need it because either your chair is going or it’s not.”
Eric uses a sip-and-puff system to operate his wheelchair. His first wheelchair back in rehab used a joystick mounted up near his chin. The chin joystick was problematic because he would sometimes get into positions in the wheelchair where the joystick was out of reach, effectively stranding him wherever he was. The sip-and-puff system gives him “more control and versatility.”
All Eric’s seating needs were initially funded by the Veterans Administration. He used to get pressure sores with gel-filled cushions, and he didn’t like the bouncy ride when he used air-filled cushions, so he went to back to the rehab centre for a consultation. They showed him a type of cushion with an area cut out so that the ischia are suspended over the missing piece. They measured him and were going to order it for him, but they gave him a piece of foam shaped just like it to try in the meantime. It worked so well that Eric never bothered to buy the real thing. Today, he makes his own cushions from firm, high-quality foam that he buys from a company he found on the Internet. He’s never had pressure sores with his new seating and he is happy with the foam he now has. It lasts so long that he’s still using his second one.
Video:
|
Eric now owns a minivan, something he would “heartily endorse” over the full-size van he originally had. Eric first found out about the minivan through a 1989 magazine article and knew he wanted one right away. The minivan handles better on small roads and sharp turns, and doesn’t feel like “a big, clunky, trucky thing.” It has an electrically powered ramp instead of the elevator style lift on the old van. Eric finds it much quicker to get in and out of the minivan using the ramp, rather than having to wait for the lift.
He also prefers the minivan because the floor could be lowered by ten inches instead of his old van’s four inches. In the old van, he sat so high that he couldn’t see anything outside. He felt “like a piece of luggage” even though he sat next to the driver. With the minivan, Eric is able to see where he’s going.
Video:
|
All of the assistive devices that Eric describes contribute to his personal autonomy and to his ability to live independently in his own home without having someone on call all the time. As he says, “That’s a really key thing about a lot of my favourite technology…. All those things allow me to be by myself and still do something other than just get parked in the corner.”
If he sees something that meets a need or solves a problem for him, Eric finds the most effective way to get it. His first step is to call the Veterans Administration to ask if they will cover the cost of adapting it. Most of the time they will, but with the minivan, the computer and his first speech recognition system, Eric was a little “too eager, too early for them.” They fund all that stuff now but in the late 1980s when he first became aware of all these things, they didn’t. They covered part of the cost of modifications to the minivan, but they didn’t see the computer or speech recognition as adaptive technology, so Eric went out and bought them on his own.
Eric has two main pieces of advice to offer new consumers of assistive technology. One is that you don’t always need the most cutting-edge, high-tech devices available from the medical suppliers to meet your needs. He cites his homemade mouthsticks, cushions and the blanket remover as examples of ways in which he has saved hundreds of dollars. Some of the products that he uses as assistive devices, like his phone and the interface for controlling the lights from his computer, are available commercially, so he buys them that way because it’s a lot cheaper than what’s on the specialty market.
Eric also feels that the latest improvements in assistive technology aren’t necessarily advances on basic design and function. He mentions his chair as an example. “It’s still using the older style of technology in layout and maybe that doesn’t look as flashy as the newest thing, but it goes like a tank.” He feels much the same way about newer versions of speech recognition systems, the new electric leg bag emptiers and the fitted version of the mouthstick. “It just so happens that you don’t always improve something when you over-engineer it.”
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - |
Home © 1999 - 2010 All Rights Reserved |
