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Your weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist people with disabilities and special needs.
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Hi, this is Shawna Persaud, and I’m the Director of Clinical and Product Management at Abilitech Medical, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.Josh Anderson:
Hello, and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis Indiana. Welcome to episode 507 of Assistive Technology Update. It’s scheduled to be released on February 12th, 2021.
Josh Anderson:
On today’s show we are super excited to have Shawna Persaud on. She’s going to talk about the all new Abilitech Assist from Abilitech Medical. We also have a story written by a hearing impaired individual and how Zoom is actually helping them with meetings. We have a story about a new app that can turn your iPhone into a document camera for use in Zoom meetings, and we have a story about a partnership between an e-scooter company and a GPS app made for individuals with visual impairments. We thank you so much for listening today. If you have any suggestions for the show or someone who you’d like to hear interviewed, please reach out to us. You can reach us at tech@astersealscrossroads.org. We thank you again for listening and now let’s go ahead and get on with the show.
Josh Anderson:
Are you looking for more podcasts to listen to? Do you have questions about assistive technology, about an accommodation or maybe how something works? Are you really busy and only have a minute to listen to podcasts? Well, guess what? You’re in luck because we have a few other podcasts that you should really check out. The first one is Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions or ATFAQ, hosted by Brian Norton and featuring myself and Belva Smith and then a bunch of other guests.
Josh Anderson:
What we do is we sit around and take questions about assistive technology, either about accommodations, about different things that are out there or about different ways to use things. We get those questions from Twitter, online, on the phone and in many other ways. We’re also trying to build a little bit of a community as sometimes believe it or not, we don’t have all the answers so we reach out to you to answer some of those questions and help us along. You can check that out anywhere that you get your podcast and wherever you find this podcast.
Josh Anderson:
We also have Accessibility Minute. Accessibility Minute is hosted by Laura Medcalf, and if you’ve never heard her voice it is smooth as silk and you should really listen to that podcast. She’s going to give you just a one-minute blurb about some different kinds of assistive technology, kind of wet your whistle a little bit and just let you know some of the new things that are out there so that you can go out and find out a little bit more about them yourself. So again, check out our other shows, Assistive Technology Frequently Asked Questions and Accessibility Minute, available wherever you get your podcasts.
Josh Anderson:
Here at Assistive Technology Update we’ve been using Zoom for quite some time even before the pandemic. Most of our interviews are conducted over Zoom, at least those folks that couldn’t come in the studio back when coming in the studio was actually something that people could do from time to time if they were local. But I found an interesting opinion story for at The Hamilton Spectator. It’s written by Beverly Biedermann and it’s called I’m Deaf and I Hope Zoom is Here To Stay.
Josh Anderson:
So we really think as the whole world moved to Zoom, it did make some issues for folks. A lot of people weren’t used to telecommuting or doing video conferences at all and it references that a little bit in this story as well. Some of the people forgetting to mute or people forgetting to unmute themselves, everyone trying to talk at once, bad connectivity. Of course we’ve all experienced when you drop connectivity and you don’t realize that your picture’s frozen usually in the funniest looking position you can possibly be in. Talks about folks leaving on their microphones and their cameras while going to the restroom or other things.
Josh Anderson:
It also does pose the question, has Ikea sold out of bookcases because everyone needs to put bookcases behind them to show everyone how smart and well-read they are. They’ll be on the comedy and the frustration of Zoom meetings and the different kind of challenges that it has presented. Should I talk about some of the things that have gotten better as an individual with a hearing impairment? Beverly talks about in this story that she reads lips in order to communicate, she has some hearing loss and what she describes as pretty much deaf. And she talked about at the very beginning she would use Speaker View and it was very easy to lip-read. Of course at the beginning when everyone was talking over each other the speaker would jump from one person to another, to another, to another, to another.
Josh Anderson:
And some of the challenges of course that that presented, but then some work around. So, they started using raise hands. People would mute themselves, raise their hand when they wanted to speak, kind of be called on as we used to do in school. But she really talked about how great it was to have these folks much closer to her in a meeting sense on that Speaker View because she could easily read their lips while they were talking.
Josh Anderson:
If you really think if we’re all sitting around a large table in a meeting, if anyone can remember what that was like, if you’re trying to read folks lips, yeah, it might be easy for the person right across from you, maybe even the person right next to you, but the person at the other end of the table it’s going to be a little bit more difficult, especially if they’re not completely facing you. Whereas with Zoom using Speaker View whomever is talking is looking right at you so it’s much easier to be able to read lips and works as a great accommodation.
Josh Anderson:
She also talks about how great it is that it allows for captioning so folks that are hearing impaired or even English language learners can have that as an extra thing to be able to help them understand everything a little bit better. Some other advantages that she talks about is not having to drive through snow storms or slip on ice on the way to class, having to search for handicap parking spots on a dark night, no last minute hunts for babysitters or needing to prepare a big meal for guests. You just sit in front of the laptop and have dinner with folks over Zoom. So you just have to cook for one or the small family unit that you’re in, but you can still have meals with a big group without having all that mess.
Josh Anderson:
It’s actually a pretty funny story and she does work humor in there a lot. But it is just a great representation about how some things, again, Zoom was not made as an accommodation, wasn’t made at as assistive technology. Of course there are adaptive settings and some other things that you can put in there, but how it’s actually turned into something that could be a great accommodation for individuals with hearing loss and with other disabilities. I know on our team we’ve moved to a lot of training that we do on different assistive technology. We began to use Zoom as much as we can. We’d tried to use it of course in the past as much as we could but a lot of folks weren’t real receptive, maybe didn’t want to use it, wanted to have the person there.
Josh Anderson:
But for folks with certain disabilities that remote training has actually worked a whole lot better. For some individuals with autism or different anxiety disorders not having a trainer in their space during training actually helps them learn and can really be a great accommodation. I’m pretty sure the world will go back to some semblance of normal at some point, not all meetings will be on Zoom but I’m sure that some still will and hopefully businesses will look at these as accommodations they can make for some of their employees in order to really help them be a more productive part of the workforce and help them out. We’ll put a link to this story over in our show notes that you can go check it out for yourself. But please go check it out, it’s definitely a fun story on how Zoom became an accommodation without even meaning to.
Josh Anderson:
Speaking of Zoom and I think I’ve definitely mentioned it before, on our clinical team we started to do a lot more training on assistive technology over Zoom. It’s just a whole lot easier, it keeps everybody safe, and for some technology it really works well. But there are of course some challenges. And one of those challenges is if I’m trying to show someone something that maybe isn’t on the screen, I have to try to hold it up in front of the camera, sometimes it can become inverted and there’s a lot of other challenges.
Josh Anderson:
Well, I found a story over at 9to5Mac. It’s by Chance Miller and it’s titled Overviewer is a New App That Turns an iPhone into a Document Camera for Zoom in Virtual Meetings. It talks about an app called Overview and this is available on iOS. And what it does is it actually turns the iPhone into a document camera when you use it with Zoom and some other video conferencing applications. And it’s meant to actually act as a replacement or a substitute for traditional document cameras. Because if you really think these top-down document cameras can be kind of expensive if you’re using them just for remote teaching, remote learning, or any of these kinds of things, but this actually turns the device you already have in to that document camera for you.
Josh Anderson:
So we think for teachers, especially, this is great because anytime having to show a worksheet or something like that as you work through it, this way they can just have that work underneath the iPhone and have all that information relayed to those learners on the other side of the screen, I guess, for lack of better terms. For me, because I’ve started actually using it makes it really easy if I need to show the keyboard. Maybe I’m showing someone some different controls, what to hit, some different things that can make it easy to do that. If I’m trying to show them maybe how to manipulate a mount or anything that I really need to show them, it works great because then I’m just using the iPhone as the camera and it sends it right over there.
Josh Anderson:
So the Overview was developed by Charlie Chapman. And there’s a little quote here from Charlie and he’s talking about he developed this because his wife’s a kindergarten teacher and when COVID hit, of course she had to try to teach a bunch of kids how to draw letters over Zoom. So this didn’t really work very well for her. He said originally she was just using the camera app and then projecting that of course to the computer, but he said there were a couple of issues with this. The first issue was there’s a bunch of buttons and stuff around the camera so it looks a little clunky. It also says that the camera app doesn’t actually rotate when turned sideways. So you know about those big black bars on either side, so you’re not really sharing a whole lot of information.
Josh Anderson:
It says that overview or connects to Zoom just the way that you will always connect your iPhone to Zoom either by the lightening cable or by AirPlay if you have that available. And then it sends exactly what the iPhone’s cameras sees, including rotating the landscape. So if you really think this is a pretty simple app really for what it does, but it’s also a major need. In much like most things with assistive technology, someone looked, saw a need and then figured out a way to kind of do it.
Josh Anderson:
Overview is available for free on the App Store. It doesn’t say anything about it coming to Android or anything anytime soon, it looks like this might just be an iOS thing. I will put a link to this story over in the show notes so that you can check out the story for yourself and go find Overview. But again, it can be really helpful on the Zoom meetings if you need a document camera to show maybe a little bit more information than what you can project with share screen.
Josh Anderson:
Our next story comes to us from TechRound over in the UK. It’s written by Laura Dolton and it’s called New Partnership Protects Visually Impaired Pedestrians. A long time ago we had some talks on the show about e-scooters, about just some of the issues with them, folks with visual impairments almost getting run over by them because you’re not going to see them coming, and also folks leaving them in areas that made some places in accessible, leaving them in ramps and other things like that.
Josh Anderson:
I haven’t read as many stories about these kinds of things so I’m guessing some of them were fixed and proved and everything else. As you know when new stuff, new technology comes out a lot of times you’re not thinking about these accessibility things so hopefully some of those have been fixed or at least they’re definitely not getting reported as much. I suppose also with pandemics and things, maybe people aren’t using e-scooters as much.
Josh Anderson:
But this story is about an e-scooter operator in the UK called Tier, T-I-E-R. And they’re partnering with Lazarillo, and I really hope I pronounce that correct. It refers to Lazarillo here is the world’s leading GPS app for the visually impaired. And they’re partnering to offer greater protection and improved safety standards for blind and partially sighted pedestrians. Apparently Tier has already launched some different collaborations with the visually impaired community, says they’ve been working alongside the national charity, Thomas Pocklington Trust, and they worked with them to design a sound alert to warn blind and partially sighted individuals when an e-scooter was coming.
Josh Anderson:
It goes into a little bit more about the Lazarillo app, and the Lazarillo app works by providing users with real time audio messages about streets they’re walking while also helping them navigate through buildings such as shops or restaurants. In this partnership Lazarillo will share their aggregated data with Tier, and that will allow them to know what routes are most used by folks with visual impairments. So it’s going to help Tier with different decision-making when it comes to distributing their e-scooters or maybe where they put the parking bays, and they can also set up no-go or go-slow zones so if it’s a place maybe that’s frequented and by individuals with visual impairments, then they can set those scooters up where they’ll automatically go slow in those kinds of areas.
Josh Anderson:
That information can also be integrated back in the app so the folks who are blind or partially sighted can be more aware of where more e-scooters might be. It says this partnership’s already been activated in the UK and they plan to extend it to other cities around Europe and the Middle East. The two companies are currently holding training sessions for different visually impaired organizations to give them more information on the app and on e-scooters.
Josh Anderson:
Again, I know we had some stories back in the past about e-scooters and about how they were kind of messing up accessibility for some different things, but with most new companies in new technology if it’s not made for AT we know that sometimes that’s not always a first consideration with those companies but it’s great to see that they are taking this into consideration and hopefully this partnership can really help with the health and safety of visually impaired individuals when it comes to e-scooters. We’ll go ahead and put a link to the story over in our show notes so you can check it out for yourself.
Josh Anderson:
There are a myriad of different assistive technology supports that we talk about here on this show but if you really break it all down, they all really have one thing in common and that’s increased independence. Well, many individuals in this world have neuromuscular disorders that have been relying on others for tasks that many of us may take for granted, such as brushing our teeth, opening doors, eating and other things. Well, our guest today is Shawna Persaud, and she’s the Director of Clinical and Product Management for Abilitech Medical. And she’s here to tell us all about the Abilitech Assist and how it can help individuals with some of their everyday activities. Shawna, welcome to the show.
Shawna Persaud:
Josh, nice to meet with you today, thanks for having me on the program.
Josh Anderson:
Yeah, I’m really excited to get in and talk about this technology. But before we do that could you start us off by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself?
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah, most definitely. For me I have a background in pharmacology and throughout my career I’ve always been passionate about research and development and developing new solutions to improve human health and wellbeing. And for me what was really exciting about Abilitech Medical is the idea that we can create a solution and see an immediate impact in the lives of patients.
Josh Anderson:
And that is always a nice thing whenever you can see folks actually be able to use these things and really change their lives. Well, the main reason we have you here is to talk about the Abilitech Assist. So what is it?
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah, the Abilitech Assist it’s a wearable device that allows individuals with upper limb weakness to perform activities of daily living. Our device goes over a user’s arm and is customized to their strength profile to enable them to just simple self-care tasks, such as eat, drink, brush your teeth, use a computer independently. So by restoring independence for individuals we allow them to engage more fully with their loved ones, their communities, and regain more independence.
Josh Anderson:
Oh, it’s great. You said with upper body weakness and everything so it’s using that little bit of motion the individual has left and just kind of assisting, I guess?
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah. So the device incorporate springs and motors to offload the weight of a user’s arm. Imagine what it feels like when you’re in a swimming pool or underwater. By removing the weight of their arm patients are able to use their residual strength to move their shoulder and elbow. And that’s something that’s really unique about our device is the idea that we have this hybrid technology that’s custom too for each individuals and helps support them in lifting different weighted objects.
Josh Anderson:
Is there a limit on how much it can lift or is that a dependent on the individual?
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah, it’s dependent on an individual but it was designed to help support individuals lifting up to 12 ounces. Stronger patients may able to lift heavier objects, those on the weaker end of the spectrum might be capped at 12. Patients that could benefit having that minimal strength, so our device in essence acts as power steering helping to amplify what residual strength the patient has.
Shawna Persaud:
If we were to think about quantifying that more clinically it’s correlated to a manual muscle test score of a two to a three for shoulder and elbow flection. Visually, if we were to look at it it’s just being able to lift your elbow maybe an inch or so off the table and be able to reach across your mid line. So as long as the patient can initiate both of those ranges of motion there’s a likelihood that they could benefit from this type of technology.
Josh Anderson:
Oh, still that’s going to cover those things you talked about like eating, drinking, opening doors, brushing your teeth, all those kinds of things that are great when you don’t have to rely on someone else to do those things for you. Shawna, could you tell me about the process that you went through for developing the assist?
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah. For us our organization was founded about four years ago so we just reached a great milestone where we listed with the FDA and launched our products this last month. So over this four-year period we really have been partnering with clinicians and patients to develop our process. And what’s interesting is the idea of this overwhelming need that seems to be overlooked. Everyone is used to staying a wheelchair for people that can’t walk, but if you can’t use your arms there were very few solutions out there and that was the driving factor in forming Abilitech.
Josh Anderson:
And I’m sure in this development phase you got to maybe meet some of the folks that were involved in that. Could you maybe tell me a story about some of the input that you got from a user while they were helping you develop the device?
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah, Josh, it’s interesting. We meet with patients and the sentiments are very similar across the age spectrum. From adolescents to adults, it’s very simple things that patients want to accomplish, being able to scratch an itch, feed yourself independently. In particular, we were working with a woman that is living with multiple sclerosis and we met with her and saw her and we noticed these red welts on her arms and on her neck. And she was saying that, “I was sitting out in the porch and I had to watch a mosquito bite me and there was nothing I can do about it.”
Shawna Persaud:
So it was just think about being able to scratch an itch, something that we do subconsciously and don’t pay much attention to and that’s huge for the lives of these individuals. What was also striking is the idea of being able to have a meal with your friends, be able to sit at a restaurant and be able to eat independently, it’s a ultra-human activity that so many of us take for granted.
Josh Anderson:
I mean, with scratching the itch that’s something I didn’t even think about. If it’s meant to take that away, goodness gracious, I don’t know if I could make it through a day.
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah, most definitely. It’s just there’s so many things, eating, drinking, and beyond just the physical interaction. And the economic impact for individuals, the idea that now that you can use your arms to use a computer may help you return to work or stay in the workforce longer. So many families that live with disabilities are severely impacted and our system is so fragmented, getting access to solutions and accommodations that help people regain their independence are few and far between.
Josh Anderson:
You brought up a great point there because I think of all the things that go into work and sometimes getting there. But if you need to ride the bus usually you have to at least lift up a card and scan it or hand it to someone or something so just being able to do that small activity might open up the whole door of transportation to you as well.
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah. Well, I guess the other element to think about is there’s caregivers and the burdens of taking care of most family, people needing to leave the workforce to take care of a loved one, but also a clinician perspective. So many times there are solutions that a occupational therapist or a physical therapist can use in clinic training with capital equipment, but there are very few devices that allow a clinician to help a patient continue their rehabilitation in their home setting.
Josh Anderson:
And talking about the upper body weakness and things, what are some different disabilities that this might help that you actually see that barrier with?
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah, definitely for individuals with neuromuscular weakness, a lot of people live with various forms of muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, some forms of spinal cord injury or even stroke as well.
Josh Anderson:
Shawna, if someone thought that this device could really be a benefit for them, what would be their first steps? How would they find out more or contact someone? What should they do?
Shawna Persaud:
We have a telehealth screening available on our website www.abilitechmedical.com, and that’s an opportunity to connect with our team and we would be able to direct an interested candidate to a center of excellence for an evaluation.
Josh Anderson:
Well, Shawna, and besides just the website is there another way that if folks who want to find out more about Abilitech or about the Abilitech Assist, is there another way that they should do that?
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah. We have a social media, our company Facebook page and LinkedIn, we’re active on social. So please follow us and we can engage with our interested candidates through those platforms as well. The other thing that’s happening too with Abilitech is that we are beginning several clinical studies. In particular we have a muscular dystrophy study with Gillette Children’s Specialty Healthcare in the University of Minnesota where we’re understanding the impact of our device on a patient’s ability to perform activities of daily living and improve their quality of life.
Josh Anderson:
Excellent. You brought up a good point, something I wanted to ask you there. Shawna, I know you said this is tailored to the individual, so could it be used for a child, an adult, really folks of all different shapes and sizes?
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah. Our device is custom-fit to a patient. So we have two sizes initially, a medium and a large device. The medium device is designed to fit individuals about five feet tall to six foot four with our large device so across those two devices we can serve a wide variety of different patients. We also have a grant with the National Institutes of Health to develop a pediatric device, which is scaled down to fit younger adolescents and pediatric patients.
Josh Anderson:
Shawna, I’m also going to ask and then this is maybe something you guys have thought about or maybe not. Could this also be used for somebody maybe going through rehabilitation? Maybe they’re going to get that strength back, they’ve lost it for a while, could it be used to supplement during that time they’re going through rehabilitation?
Shawna Persaud:
The device has many broad applications. We’re really honing in on the ability to restore someone’s independence and perform activities in daily living. As I mentioned we have several clinical studies, so looking at these other end points of regaining strength over time is something that we’re very interested in understanding and quantifying. For us, what’s unique about our approach, our technology is that we have designed it to be custom-fit or custom to a patient’s profile. So being able to have a device with adjustments that we can fit a patient in a clinical visit, capture their current abilities without the device, put them in the device and then document what they’re now able to do really helps to build a case and show the evidence that this device will work for that specific patient, so it’s not just conjecture on how we can support somebody.
Shawna Persaud:
That is something that is a bit unique about our device is that we can tune and calibrate it for a patient in a clinical visit. We know that there’s a wide variety of patients that we can serve. Some patients might be too strong and some patients might be two weak, so really honing in on that level of strength that a patient needs to have to initiate a movement is going to be key.
Josh Anderson:
We can’t wait to see it in use and really be able to see because I can see how this can help folks with all kinds of things. Like I said, you even brought up stuff that I never would’ve thought of. If I couldn’t reach up and itch my nose every time that I needed to I just don’t know what I would possibly do. As well as, like you said, just being able to not have to have someone there to help you when you’re out eating with friends or at a dinner party or raising a glass and on New Year’s or anything like that, to be able to do those things independently are absolutely amazing so I’m very, very excited for this. Shawna, real quick just before we finish up, could you give us that website again just in case our folks do want to check it out or maybe set up one of those telehealth visits?
Shawna Persaud:
Yeah. Our website is www.abilitechmedical.com and we are active on Facebook and LinkedIn as well. If someone is interested in trying our device on we can have them reach out to us via our website or through our email address info@abilitechmedical.com, and we can provide more information and direct a patient to a center of excellence or set up a product demonstration.
Josh Anderson:
And we will put links to all those over in the show notes. Well, Shawna, thank you so much again for coming on the show and telling us all about Abilitech and the Abilitech Assist.
Shawna Persaud:
Thank you. It was wonderful having the opportunity to just speak with you today, Josh.
Josh Anderson:
Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If you do call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Shoot us a note on Twitter @INDATAproject, or check us out on Facebook. Are you looking for a transcript or show notes? Head over to our website at www.eastersealstech.com. Assistive Technology Update is a proud member of the Accessibility Channel. For more shows like this plus so much more, head over to accessibilitychannel.com. The views expressed by our guests are not necessarily that of this host or the INDATA Project. This has been your Assistive Technology Update, I’m Josh Anderson, with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in Indianapolis, Indiana. Thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you next time.