The impact of ICT on a person with special/particular needs

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Name: Sadian Choudhury         Candidate number: 7027

Leytonstone School                                                                                 13411

3C - The impact of ICT on a person with special/particular needs

Introduction

Over 10% of the world’s population suffers from a variety of different disabilities. These different disabilities all hold certain negative effects on each person affecting their ability to work as effectively as their co-workers, understand and comprehend things as easily as others, focus and concentrate on topics at hand or affecting the movement of a part of their body.  Out of the thousands of different disabilities out there, all of these have their different negative effect and although not every single disability may do so, the majority of these mental or physical disabilities limit the person’s potential and ability to function normally.

However, with ICT and the development of technology, these limits have often been conquered to allow people with a certain disability to function to the best of their natural ability allowing them to uphold their position as a normal or even upstanding citizen in the workplace and in everyday life. An excellent example would be Stephen Hawking, one of the most highly redeemed physicist and cosmologist and famously known to the general public all around the world. He suffers from a disease called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis which essentially attacks and over time critically corrodes all of his neurological functions affecting his motor neurones and damages the cells that have the ability of speaking, walking, breathing, swallowing and general movement of the body. Usually speaking, people with this disease rarely ever live over 10 years after diagnosis. However, Stephen Hawking’s case is rare in the sense that not only has he, by far, surpassed this life expectancy but his case also makes for the most protracted case ever documented. His whole body is, as of 2009, almost completely paralysed.


However, using technology, he has gone past the restraints of his physical body and was thus allowed to function as a famous and highly prestigious physicist.

Technology has advanced to allow Stephen Hawking to go past his disabilities as he uses a DECTalk DTC01 advanced voice synthesizer to talk and creates messages using simply his cheek—the only part of his  body he can use to move. Although this makes it a long tedious process, the whole process of using his cheek to speak shows how far science has gone in the ability to help people.

And with technology, people with other diseases and illnesses can also benefit and break the limits of what their disease has done to them. An example is Sarah Falcon, a young woman suffering from Cerebral Palsy. Cerebral Palsy is similar to Hawking’s disease in that it affects and deteriorates the motor functions but much less severely in relation to Hawking’s case and different in the fact that it affects the development of the motor conditions but do not completely limit them. They cause a physical disability in human development, mainly in the areas of body movement. There are a lot of different types of Cerebral Palsy, the most common one being spastic and what Sarah suffers from. There is yet no known cure for any of the subtypes.

Cerebral Palsy occurs most commonly during pregnancy but can also appear during childbirth or after birth up to the age of three.


People with Spastic Cerebral Palsy are hypertonic (an abnormal increase in muscle tension reducing the ability to stretch) and have a ‘neuromuscular mobility impairment’ which essentially affects the ability for the nervous system to successfully send signals in the body to cause it to properly contract and retract in accordance to the message sent. This disease causes the recipient, in this case the muscles, to receive a signal distorted to what the original message contained and thus causes the muscle to move different to what the person suffering with the disease wanted.

Sarah Falcon has an abnormal muscle tone in that she slouches while sitting, lacks the usual reflex ability of a person not suffering from this disease and lacks motor development and co-ordination.

In Sarah Falcon’s personal case, she has limited use of her arms and legs and lacks to ability to sufficiently control them, often having spasms and such. She has ‘Spastic Quadriplegia’ which affects all four of her limbs. She is also hypertonic which causes her to have an increased muscle tone and thus appears stiff and rigid. She favours the right side of her body and thus cannot keep a straight posture. Fortunately for Sarah, she miraculously has audible control over her speech. She can speak completely coherently and in a comprehensible tone.

What Sarah has, spastic quadriplegia, is the most severe type of the spastics a person can get and it’s a difficult task to even function in daily occurrences. However, Sarah has overcome this with the modern technology being developed and brought out in this day and age. Not only can she perform necessary tasks previously impossible, she can even have a job working at home being a writer. All her technology she uses all meet her essential needs; living a normal life, moving around on her own assistance, using modern technology and various other needs covered by the technology.

        Technology used for personal use

For technology Sarah uses for her own personal use, I will be covering the following:

  • Motorised Wheelchair
  • Stair lift
  • Television/Sky-digital box

         

        Motorised wheelchair:

Due to her stiff limbs and lack of nervous control, Sarah has trouble moving her limbs and lacks the ability to walk altogether. Due to not being able to move her limbs accurately, she cannot manually move a wheelchair without constant assistance.  However, with a simple remote to press buttons on, it has enabled her to be able to not need constant assistance, although supervision is still needed in-case of an accident or other problems.

        

The remote-controlled wheelchair also known as the motorised wheelchair, powerchair, electric wheelchair or electric-powered wheelchair is an essential piece of technology to help Sarah through her daily life. It is propelled via an electric motor in contrast to using manual power. This is perfect for Sarah as she is unable to propel a manual wheelchair.

The motorised wheelchair works just like a normal wheelchair except that it’s not manually powered. Unlike a normal wheelchair which uses hands to rotate the wheels, this wheelchair uses electricity which activates a motor thus spinning the wheels, making Sarah able to move without having to exert her own strength.

How it affects Sarah’s needs

Advantages (How it meets Sarah’s needs)

Sarah’s motorised wheelchair is the Beatle Powerchair. This wheelchair is easily manoeuvrable and user-friendly due to its easy controls via a joystick and menu. As quoted from the site ‘simplyhealth.co.uk’, ‘The Handicare Beatle electric wheelchair is specially designed for excellent in and outdoor manoeuvrability giving you the freedom to enjoy more in life. The Beatle electric wheelchair offers high performance and excellent usability.’

This is what allows Sarah to live and perform as naturally as possible in her condition. She works from home and the ability to manoeuvre in an eased manner is extremely helpful in allowing Sarah to go on with her daily life in a normal function.

The front wheel drive of the Beatle Powerchair allows an easier control for Sarah. This is essential and increasingly important as it prevents the wheelchair from falling by giving more support on the two stationary back wheels. It stops her from falling off the chair as easily which would be fatal as she has no proper control over her limbs and will find it hard to not only shield herself from the fall but to also get back up.

The easily customised seating also helps to suit Sarah's needs directly. Sarah needs a certain stylised seat to help her specially postured back and for her neck which her disease makes unable to keep stable. She needs to maintain a position which does not strain her neck and lets her hang loose while also making sure she stays upright. The customised seat feature works a charm for this. If the seat does not match Sarah's needs, she can easily replace it to one that would suit her need. However, seats aren't the only adjustable feature. The backs, backrests, leg supports also co-operate with Sarah’s needs as they are also completely adjustable.

Sometimes, Sarah may have poor control over her wheelchair or even lose control which could potentially lead to a horrifying accident. To prevent this, the Handicare Beatle electric wheelchair comes with changeable suspension and powerful motors which ensure Sarah the smoothest rides she can get with excellent manoeuvrability.

The controls also suit Sarah's needs. Suffering from spastic quadriplegia can make it hard to grasp difficult controls due to the difficulty of controlling the limbs but the beatle electric chair comes with easy electronic controls with a simple joystick which can be used in correspondence with the touch screen. Either one can be used with the touch screen being the one requiring less difficulty but just as much functionality as the joystick. The controls have been claimed to be designed by world-renowned experts to make them easy to use, vital for someone like Sarah.

With Sarah's lack of mobility, it can be hard doing normal tasks even with the motorised wheelchair. She may have problems reaching things from her wheelchair, which could result in her dangerous attempt turn into an accident. The Beatle powerchair negates this and caters to Sarah's needs by including an elevated seat. Sarah can use this elevated seat to reach things without the risk of having to lean out of her chair. She also gets an electrical leg rest, electrical back and an electrical tilt providing her with numerous relaxing positions she can go to, enabling her ability to avoid stressing her figure and damaging her stature further. She can avoid pains and enjoy leisure time in relaxing positions and also work from a much easier perspective as a relaxed position can allow her to focus more on work.

Disadvantages (How it does not meet Sarah’s needs)

While Sarah may be able to do all these things, it doesn’t necessarily mean all rainbows and sunshine. Sarah is still a sufferer of Cerebral Palsy and while technology may try its best, her illness still causes her many difficulties. These difficulties all vary from a lot of different things.

While the powerchair may be motor powered and easy for Sarah to use, she can still experience certain difficulties. The powerchair is designed to be steady but it can also go to quite a high speed, up to 5km/h. While this may be normal for a non-sufferer, Sarah can have problems reacting in time or controlling the machine fast enough to prevent any accidents. Sarah can face the possibility of things such as bumping into walls, accidently manoeuvring down stairs or onto other dangerous surfaces or even moving into dangerous objects that can cause  great harm to Sarah.

It is also extremely expensive to buy, maintain and make useable in a living environment. This is simply because the chair is quite expensive but also requires electricity to run. Not only does this affect costs, it also goes against Sarah’s want of trying to be as green as possible and using the least amount of electricity and only to what’s necessary. But it’s not just the chair; she also requires a stair lift to carry her on her chair. This takes more money and more electricity.

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Summary of advantages

  • Motor powered, much easier to use for Sarah
  • Easily manoeuvrable and user-friendly
  • Good support for staying upright
  • Adjustable/replaceable features
  •  Good suspension to keep a comfortable stable ride
  • Simple easy controls
  • Allows Sarah to experience a normal life that she always wanted

Summary of disadvantages

  • Can’t always control accurately as it is very hard for her to be dextrous with her hands
  • Extremely expensive to maintain and hard to get up the stairs, thus needing the stair lift contributing more to expenses
  • Requires electricity rather than the typical manual force—uses up money and ...

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