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Dragger 32 |
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| FTLComm - Tisdale - Thursday, February 20, 2003 | ||||||
 It has been two years since Rory, a thirty-one year old man from Aylsham was a back seat passenger in a car crash that left him unable to move from the neck down. So what can you do in today's world if you can talk, think and move your head? Rory has set about crafting a new life for himself and this is the story of the tools that he uses that give him mobility, the ability to write and interact with the rest of the world using his computer and his connection with the Internet. The key element is making use of technology and those functions available. At the top of this page is the working screen as Rory was showing me how he could word process and few of you reading this can type as fast as Rory. Wearing his glasses that really are only a mount for the three reflective dots that allow him to move the cursor around his screen and actuate the software he needs. With his head set in place and Dragon Naturally Speaking 6 he can speak and the computer types out the words |
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 in whatever application he chooses, email, word processor, web browser all work equally well with the software. When a word comes along that the software does not understand he merely teaches it that word (this teaching process is what is on the screen at the top of the page). A small box seen in the picture below reads the movement of the dots on his glasses and translates the information into the input that would normally be accomplished by a hand operated mouse. Just by pausing on a location the software "Dragger 32" activates the mouse button and engages the routine he is requesting. Rory's electric wheel chair is directed by his head movements. He selects the menu on the display (left) and then with his head movement can move about. Rory has no movement other than his head so sustenance, getting to and from bed, getting dressed and undressed, all are chores that his wife looks after. It is not until you watch him at work that you realise just how much a person takes for granted as flipping over a piece of paper, any task that requires hands, arms, legs and feet are just not an option. Though these remarkable technologies can provide him with a productive role in life it is the really simple things that only a care giver can provide. Though it must be overwhelming at times to face the reality of the limitations created in a person's life by being unable to move, but at the same |
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 time, it is enormously important to put to work a creative and capable mind. Rory's life was in music and the tools he has available to his head offer him the chance to begin a different and important phase of his musical career. He has already written a book about his struggle over these past two years and now his newest project involves his knowledge and understanding of the music industry and in due course you are definitely going to hear and appreciate the work he is now undertaking. After showing us around his hardware and software, he was bundled up and off we went about three blocks over to his mother's business for a fabulous hamburger. It was snowing at the time and there was about three inches of fresh snow on the ground but the chair moved easily along under his complete and total direction. "look Ma, no hands." With "Dragger 32" and Dragon Naturally Speaking working so well the potential to move mountains of ideas and information is at his disposal. |
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The following appeared in the Nipawin Journal:
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