National Eye Health Week

Despite the fact that over half of all blindness and visual impairment could be prevented, with early diagnosis, only 66% of UK adults have taken an eye test in the past 10 years, according to the RNIB.

So the RNIB are running National Eye Health Week, to raise awareness of how to look after your vision and avoid sight loss.

As well as possibly preventing blindness, regular eye examinations can also lead to the discovery of the early stages of other illnesses, such as diabetes, so can be useful for general all-round well being, not just seeing if you need glasses.

The RNIB point out a number of simple ways of avoiding sight loss, such as stopping smoking, wearing sunglasses, wearing safety goggles when doing DIY and eating a balanced diet, all of which could reduce the figure of 100 people in the UK losing their sight every day.

Sight loss can happen to anyone so looking after your eyes is very important and something most people don’t think about until it’s too late.

Visit the RNIB web site for more information on Eye Health Week.

London 2012 Paralympics : Guide to sports for the blind

The London 2012 Paralympics was launched tonight with the opening ceremony.  After the huge success of the Olympics this is the chance for the biggest Paralympics ever to shine.  To the athletes their disability is almost incidental: it;s not about their disability but about their ABILTY, what they CAN do.
This is a guide to the main sports to be competed by blind and visually impaired athletes.  There may be some level of sight loss in other sports but these are the sports where visual impairment categorizes them for these events:

Athletics

Athletes must trust guides that shouting or giving other acoustic instructions as they run, throw or jump.  Some athlet6es have sighted guides that run with them whilst others are visually impaired with limited vision.  Each different level of impairment runs/throws.jumps in different categories.

Cycling

Visually impaired cyclists ride tandem with a sighted pilot up front steering them around the track.

Football – five-a-side

Four outfield players - wearing blindfolds to give everyone the same level of visual impairment - and a sighted goalkeeper compete two halves of 25 minutes.  The ball has ball bearings inside, so players can hear where the balls is and the pitch is surround by acoustic boards so sounds reflect – the crowd is asked to be quiet during play.

Goalball

Two teams of three blindfolded players play two halves of 12 minutes.  Teams must get a medicine ball full of bells beyond the opposing team to score.  The defending team uses any part of their body to prevent the attack.

Judo

In the Paralympics Judo is reserved purely for the visually impaired.  Although graded on levels of visual impairment competitors fight in weight categories, rather than disability level.

Rowingg

Skulls are adapted with additional stabilising "pontoons", buoyancy devices to aid balance.

Swimming

A number of events based on severity of disability. For the visually impaired a taper is placed across each lane which prompts swimmers of the approach of the wall.

My guide dog and I

I’ve had my guide dog for a couple of months now and getting him was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Jet is a wonderful black labrador, two years old at the end of next month. Not only is he good at his job, enjoying his work, he also has a lovely temperament, is very social and is absolutely no trouble whatsoever. He fits into my life perfectly. This is testament to the brilliant work by the guide dogs Association, their trainers and their puppy walkers.

Guide dogs is a wonderful organisation. The dedication, training, advice and help that the charity gives is superb and can't be faulted.

The process started with a visit from a member of the team who came to my home to discuss whether getting a dog would be right for me. We talked about my condition, my lifestyle and how the guide dog might benefit my life. Once the decision was taken that a dog would be good for me, it was arranged that I would have some test walks to see what kind of dog would suit.

The first walk was around my local area within member of the team holding a harness, no dog involved. This was test my mobility, how I got around with my white cane, speed etc. This was followed a few weeks later with another walk, this time with the kind of dog they thought would suit me. All the time I was being assessed so they can actually with a suitable dog.

Then I was put on the waiting list. As I had not specified the type, breed or sex of dog the process of finding the right dog from me would probably be quicker. Some people are quite particular about the kind of dog they want. The charity has a set of criteria so people are matched to the right dog. People have different needs, such as how much exercise the dog will need, it's size overspeed it walks for example.

Once they found an animal that they thought was right for me it was time for my training. Training can take place residentially at a number of hotels around the country or within the home. As I am quite active and used to dogs, my training was from home. So for three weeks Jet moved in and everyday we went out with a trainer learning all the commands, techniques and everything I needed to know about working with a guide dog. A health visitor also came to see me to talk about the care and welfare for jet.

Once been given a lot of information and qualifying, I was handed over the reins and for a nominal fee of 50p, Jet became mine. The backup support by the organisation is brilliant, any problems I have with jet, they are only at the end of the phone. Regular visits to see how he is getting along mean he will always be in good condition. As well as his training, vets bills and after-care, they even offered to pay for his food, which I declined as they had done so much already.

Guide dog ownership is wonderful. It has made so much difference getting around. It has helped my confidence moving around in a visual world with sight loss. As well as a working dog he's also become a great buddy. He's got a great temperament, he so well-behaved (most of the time!) And makes me laugh every day. Guide dogs answer everybody but personally it's been fantastic.

If you would like more information on guide dogs like to donate please visit this link:

http://www.guidedogs.org.uk/?gclid=COH_gtvN_68CFWwntAodJzWIEA

Voice recognition software – using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5

I haven't written anything for a while. There are number of reasons (or excuses), one of them is that my vision has been deteriorating stop. To help me continue using the computer I have purchased some voice recognition software.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking uses voice recognition to type in what I say into a microphone) VGA rather than using the keyboard. It wasn't long ago that voice recognition software was a hit and miss affair. But as you can see from this blog post, which I am dictating not typing, the technology has improved immeasurably.

This is so much easier than touch typing. I can use natural speech patterns and talk quite normally and the program understands and inputs what I want. In the past this type of software  required you to speak each word in a robotic manner but now you can just speak that this it normally, albeit adding punctuation as you go.

It is early days of me using Dragon NaturallySpeaking and the software learns your speech patterns and pronunciation the more you use it. I will come back to the subject after I've been using it for a while but so far I'm extremely impressed.

My biggest criticism of the Dragon NaturallySpeaking is, that for a program so obviously useful to the blind and visually impaired community, the menus, dialogue boxes, and activation are all very small, and it would probably need a sighted person to help initial setup. Many other programs these days, designed for people with sight problems, have setups with speech, that talk you through the installation. It would have been nice for Dragon to have included this.

Still, I can see how useful this piece of software could be to people with sight loss.