Lighthouse Tools for Living Store and Low Vision Clinic Featured in Chicago Sun-Times articles
The following articles and photo appear courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times:
Help for visually impaired
SCI-TECH SCENE | New Intel Reader converts text to audio after simple scan
June 12, 2010
SANDRA GUY Technology Reporter
Bob Kemp is once again enjoying his nightly reading with the help of the Intel Reader -- a handheld device that lets people who are blind or visually impaired convert text into audio.
"If you go right through the guidebook, the Reader is easy to learn to use, and it's been a great help," said Kemp, 85, a South Side native and Hillside resident who suffers from macular degeneration.
Vision clinic expects a boom in business The one-pound Reader, paired with a portable capture station, creates MP3 versions of text to play on computers and music players. It comes with earphones so the user doesn't need to disturb others. The user can take photos of menus, tickets, prescriptions and other hard-to-read items with the Reader's portable camera.
Since the Intel Reader is new, it sells for $1,499, with the capture station costing another $399.
Kemp discovered the Intel Reader at The Chicago Lighthouse, a 104-year-old nonprofit social-service agency that runs a school, a clinic and a clock-making operation for the blind and visually impaired, and which has just opened an expanded and updated retail store at its headquarters at 1850 W. Roosevelt.
The 1,200-square-foot store, called Tools for Living, sells specialty products ranging from a color detector that tells people the color of a piece of clothing, to talking coffeemakers, clocks, scales, calculators, microwaves and watches. The book readers include the Intel Reader, the KNFB Mobile Reader that allows text to be projected onto a TV screen for $1,495, and text-magnifying handheld devices priced from $225.
The store features contrasting-color shelves so that the displays are more easily seen and a technology center that lets people learn about and try out the gadgets.
Shoppers may order products from a computer at the store, practice hooking up equipment to a working flat-screen TV, and talk with employees of the Lighthouse's Adaptive Technology department to find the item that best suits their needs.
Trends suggest that people who are blind or have low vision will one day use voice-activated appliances, facial-recognition devices and handhelds with talking GPS systems to allow greater independence in getting around, said Dr. Janet Szlyk, Lighthouse's executive director.
Link to "Help for visually impaired" article on Sun-Times website
Vision clinic expects a boom in business
June 1, 2010
BY SANDRA GUY
June 1, 2010
BY SANDRA GUY
The Chicago Lighthouse's Low Vision Clinic, the longest-operating such clinic in the nation noted for its dedication by Helen Keller, expects swelling ranks of baby boomers to increase demand for its services.
Baby boomers alone will account for 76 million people with vision problems in the next few decades, said Tom Perski, the Lighthouse's director of rehabilitation services.
The addition of 32 million Americans to the ranks of the insured, thanks to President Obama's health-care reform, is encouraging private technology companies to expand into areas such as vision screening, too.
SoloHealth, a tech startup based in Atlanta, operates EyeSite vision-screening kiosks in Kroger and Schnucks supermarkets, and plans to expand nationwide with souped-up kiosks that will do vision screening, blood-pressure monitoring and body mass index measurements, said SoloHealth CEO Bart Foster.
The free kiosks lead people through a series of questions that the users answer on a touch screen, such as one's age, gender, ethnicity and date of the most recent eye exam. The kiosk goes through a vision test, led by a doctor on video.
Of 350,000 people who've used the kiosks since their launch two years ago, 24 percent said they have never had an eye exam. And 80 percent have received recommendations to see a local eye doctor. A printer spits out a list of doctors in the local area who accept Medicare or other insurance the person can use.
"The whole experience takes less than five minutes, and we'll hold the time to five minutes even after we add the Body Mass Index and other measurements," Foster said.
The kiosks have proven popular with men, who are notorious for not wanting to see a doctor. "Men want to do things themselves and it's self-service, so even though the kiosks are in pharmacies with mostly women shoppers, 52 percent of the people who've taken the eye exam are men," Foster said.
SoloHealth is raising new capital and seeking to partner with retailers, including those that operate in-store clinics to which the kiosks could refer people.
"There will be a fundamental shift in the health-care system with a greater focus on wellness and prevention, so self-service in health care will become as common as DVDs sold at Redbox machines," Foster said.
Despite the greater ease of access to eyecare, the high-tech products for those with low vision or blindness are expected to remain expensive until the larger demand in the market brings costs down.
Meanwhile, Bob Kemp, suffering from macular degeneration (see story above), has settled in for the evening with his favorites -- poetry, suspense stories and technical books.
He has just completed two history books.
"I just read Shadow Divers, about the divers who found a German submarine from World War II, and a story about the Apache Indians' Signal Corps whose secret code [talking] was never broken," he said.
Link to "Vision clinic expects a boom in business" article on Sun-Times website
