This is a story about a library at the University of Louisiana. Offering low vision aids. Specifically something that is called a Monomouse magnifier. It looks like a mouse that hooks up to a TV. There is a camera in the flat side of the mouse that projects the image on to the TV. Its basically a CCTV built into a mouse like device. There are a few types, but they can zoom in as much as 24X.
I had the opportunity to try one of these at my local sight center. I really thought it was a great device. As compared to the Desktop Digital Magnifiers that are much more expensive and take up a lot of space. These are small, relatively cheap and very useful. I dont own one but I hope to get one soon.
I suggest taking a look at these if you have difficulty reading print.
I actually read about this technology several years ago in a wired article called Mixed Feelings. The article is extremely interesting, so much so that i re-read it today. But if you don't feel like reading the entire thing here are the parts relevant to the above video / story. First it talks about why this works.
It turns out that the tricky bit isn't the sensing. The world is full of gadgets that detect things humans cannot. The hard part is processing the input. Neuroscientists don't know enough about how the brain interprets data. The science of plugging things directly into the brain — artificial retinas or cochlear implants — remains primitive.
So here's the solution: Figure out how to change the sensory data you want into something that the human brain is already wired to accept, like touch or sight. The brain, it turns out, is dramatically more flexible than anyone previously thought, as if we had unused sensory ports just waiting for the right plug-ins. Now it's time to build them.
Then it refers to an experiment that was the predecessor to the above device.
Paul Bach-y-Rita built his first "tactile display" in the 1960s. Inspired by the plasticity he saw in his father as the older man recovered from a stroke, Bach-y-Rita wanted to prove that the brain could assimilate disparate types of information. So he installed a 20-by-20 array of metal rods in the back of an old dentist chair. The ends of the rods were the pixels — people sitting in the chairs could identify, with great accuracy, "pictures" poked into their backs; they could, in effect, see the images with their sense of touch.
The mouthpiece was the next itteration.
Having long ago abandoned the vaguely Marathon Man like dentist chair, the team now uses a mouthpiece studded with 144 tiny electrodes. It's attached by ribbon cable to a pulse generator that induces electric current against the tongue. (As a sensing organ, the tongue has a lot going for it: nerves and touch receptors packed close together and bathed in a conducting liquid, saliva.)
Here is the most relevant part.
During a long brainstorm session, they wondered whether the tongue could actually augment sight for the visually impaired. I tried the prototype; in a white-walled office strewn with spare electronics parts, Wicab neuroscientist Aimee Arnoldussen hung a plastic box the size of a brick around my neck and gave me the mouthpiece. "Some people hold it still, and some keep it moving like a lollipop," she said. "It's up to you."
Arnoldussen handed me a pair of blacked-out glasses with a tiny camera attached to the bridge. The camera was cabled to a laptop that would relay images to the mouthpiece. The look was pretty geeky, but the folks at the lab were used to it.
She turned it on. Nothing happened.
"Those buttons on the box?" she said. "They're like the volume controls for the image. You want to turn it up as high as you're comfortable."
I cranked up the voltage of the electric shocks to my tongue. It didn't feel bad, actually — like licking the leads on a really weak 9-volt battery. Arnoldussen handed me a long white foam cylinder and spun my chair toward a large black rectangle painted on the wall. "Move the foam against the black to see how it feels," she said.
I could see it. Feel it. Whatever — I could tell where the foam was. With Arnold ussen behind me carrying the laptop, I walked around the Wicab offices. I managed to avoid most walls and desks, scanning my head from side to side slowly to give myself a wider field of view, like radar. Thinking back on it, I don't remember the feeling of the electrodes on my tongue at all during my walkabout. What I remember are pictures: high-contrast images of cubicle walls and office doors, as though I'd seen them with my eyes. Tyler's group hasn't done the brain imaging studies to figure out why this is so — they don't know whether my visual cortex was processing the information from my tongue or whether some other region was doing the work.
The thing that really interests me is this "Thinking back on it, I don't remember the feeling of the electrodes on my tongue at all during my walkabout. What I remember are pictures: high-contrast images of cubicle walls and office doors, as though I'd seen them with my eyes."
Click the title for the short BBC article that accompanies the video.
So I've been using Windows 7 for over a year now, and I really like it. One improvement is the accessibility options. Though there has always been a magnifier in windows, the one in windows 7 is very useful in my opinion. here is a video demo of the magnifieer.
I tend to use the Lens feature, so i can see the entire screen and zoom in on key information.
If there is any interest I may create a video or a walk through on how I navigate and work on a PC (something I do about 16 hours a day).
I realize I'm probably late to the party but my wife accidentally turned on the zoom feature on her Iphone and it really impressed me. I'm not a huge fan of apple products but this feature alone makes me think i wouldn't mind having an Iphone.
Here is the feature demonstrated.
Here are some additional accessibility features offered on the Iphone
One thing that still bothers me is the font size in text messages. I really think this needs to be more customizable, but otherwise it seems like a very good device for those with low vision.
I have written earlier about Advanced Cell Technologies filing an IND (Investigational New Drug) application with the FDA. The application would allow them to start a phase 1 trial for using Embryonic Stem Cells to treat Stargardt's disease in 12 people.
This application was approved on March 2nd and the trial is now able to move forward. This could be a very promising treatment for those with Stargardt's Disease.
“We are pleased that the FDA has, for the first time, granted orphan drug status for the use of an embryonic stem cell derived therapy in treating an unmet medical need,” said Edmund Mickunas, Vice President Regulatory. “We believe that our terminally differentiated RPE cells represent a promising treatment for patients with SMD and expect to be in a position to accelerate clinical development and hopefully make RPE cellular therapy available to the majority of patients sooner.”
Here is a description of the treatment.
Degenerative diseases of the retina are among the most common causes of untreatable blindness in the world, and as many as ten million people in the United States have photoreceptor degenerative disease. While most of these patients have Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD), a smaller number have Stargardt’s, an Orphan disease and to date an untreatable form of juvenile macular degeneration leading to blindness in a much younger group of patients than are affected by AMD. ACT’s treatment for eye disease uses stem cells to re-create a type of cell in the retina that supports the photoreceptors needed for vision. These cells, called retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), are often the first to die off in SMD and AMD, which in turn leads to loss of vision.
While there is currently no treatment for SMD, several years ago ACT and its collaborators discovered that human embryonic stem cells could be a source of RPE cells. Subsequent studies found that the cells could restore vision in animal models of macular degeneration. In a Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rat model, implantation of RPE cells resulted in 100% improvement in visual performance over untreated controls, without any adverse effects. The cells survived for more than 220 days and sustained extensive photoreceptor rescue. Functional rescue was also achieved in the ‘Stargardt’s’ mouse with near-normal functional measurements recorded at more than 70 days.
I've dedicated a few posts to Canadian Olympic cross country skier Brian Mckeever. He is 30 years old, has Stargardts disease, is legally blind, and is competing in both the Olympic and Paralympic games this winter. He will be the first athlete in history to do so.
He is competing in the Men's 50km Mass Start Classic, It starts Sunday February 28th at 9:30 AM PSD. If you are on the east cost set your DVR's.
Again we'll be cheering for him even though he's Canadian.
Update: (3/2/2010): Unfortunately according to Wikipedia Brian did not compete on Sunday.
however Canada's coach decided to replace him with a skier who did well at an earlier event at the 2010 games and thus he will not become the first athlete in the world to compete in the Winter Paralympics and Winter Olympics in the same year.
A study from the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA) found that people who consume at least 100 millilitres of olive oil a week are almost 50 per cent less likely to develop macular degeneration than those who eat less than 1 millilitre per week.
The study also found that people who eat other foods which are rich in omega-3 fatty-acids, such as fish and nuts, are 15 per cent less likely to develop macular degeneration.
Age-related Macular Degeneration, which impacts the vision of more than 2 million Americans 50 and older, is one of the leading causes of blindness. Yet many people aren’t even aware of the perils of this eye disease, which is why Prevent Blindness America has declared February AMD/Low Vision Month.
If you didnt read the previous post about these glasses here is a quick description from Dr. Sonsino.
He says, "The glasses combine three aspects. The first is magnificaion, the second is a little prism to allow the eyes to stay straight, instead of curving in, and the third is LED lighting."
The article describes briefely how the glasses help and who would have a need for them. They also have a website www.lowvisionreaders.com which says they are currently working on a prototype and best estimates are these will be released in summer of 2010.
. It looks like a mouse that hooks up to a TV. There is a camera in the flat side of the mouse that projects the image on to the TV. Its basically a CCTV built into a mouse like device. There are a few types, but they can zoom in as much as 24X.
