Wheelchair computing - looking for advice

[susans_brother]

My sister Sue had to stop working two years ago, having been diagnosed with MSA about a year earlier and has now moved into a care-ready retirement complex near us. She's now taken delivery of an NHS-funded powered wheelchair, and I'm looking to install a Windows tablet to handle (to start with) a reversing camera and a speech synthesizer (Sue banked her voice last year, and she's becoming progressively harder to understand).

At the moment she can still handle a mouse, but I'm thinking about a pupil tracker as she's losing fine motor control in her hands.

Here's the question: Does anyone have experience with eye control? I know everyone is different, but am I right to assume that Sue's likely to retain directional control over her eyes?

And is there anything else I should be thinking about?

JD

[thedjsupreme]

I don't know if they can help but I've used a company called speak unique in Newcastle. Good luck you seem well prepared

[Kaye31 in reply to thedjsupreme]

Hi, our OT referred us and we have a funded voice tablet.

As I understand it, we couldn’t have a pupil tracker as the eye blink is very minimal.

He does struggle with the tablet but he gets there.

The wheelchair provider can do the cameras etc and you’ll need assistant control. Some are funded and some are extras.

Good luck x

[Gill-C]

MSA causes my eyes not to track properly I’m afraid, but not everyone has every symptom. Your sister may not develop this problem.

That said I have not tried a laptop with eye control, it might still work. The biggest users of these seem to be people with Motor Neuron Disease.

I would checkout the MND Association online for information. Also AbilityNet.org came up when I was searching and looked as if it might be useful.

Good luck!

[susans_brother in reply to Gill-C]

Thanks, Gill - that's very helpful to know.

[leroybrown]

We are based in Ireland. My wife has extremely poor motor control to manage either a mouse or touch on iPad or phone. But she was assessed for eye gaze technology by the Central Remedial Clinic (CRC) in Dublin and was told that she is ideal candidate. Application for same has been approved and we will hopefully get delivery of same soon. Will let you know how we get on. Main reason for getting new computer with eye gaze technology is because my wife's speech is very poor but with eye gaze hopefully Speak Unique will be more accessible & useful.

[susans_brother]

Thanks for all your help. Sue's first tablet will be installed this week, with Tobii's Communicator 5, and I have a Tobii EyeX controller which, although not a current product, is supported by Windows 11, so we're going to try that out in the short term.