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Tech Watch: How is Technology Helping People with Disabilities?

Disability is something that makes life more challenging because a physically impaired person has to rely on others for everything they do. Thanks to the modern-day technology as it is making disabled people capable enough to live a normal life. How? Let’s find out!

The field of science and technology is advancing with each passing day. All these advancements are being done to add ease and convenience in everyone’s life. The main purpose is to make technology as common as possible so that it can become in every walk of life while adding some relief to our everyday routine.

We believe that the real breakthrough of technology is not only limited landing a man on moon but to make a disabled person live life like a normal person. Assistive technology is the collaboration of technologists and biologists to come up with real life solutions for people with disabilities.

According to an estimate, near to a billion people around the world are disable or face some kind of disability. They do a lot of struggle and efforts to survive in their everyday life because they don’t want to experience the feeling of being left out alone.

It is the case of young people with disabilities but what about the elderly member of the society facing the same issue. At that time of age, neither do they have enough strength or stamina to do even the simplest things for themselves so they rely on the help of others.

This thing has been greatly understood by the experts of assistive technology and they are continuously devising tools and mechanics that have already started assisting people with disabilities

Assistive technology doesn’t only help handicap people with their daily routine but also make them feel more confidence and comfort in their life. There are endless ways in which the field of technology is transforming lives of the people with disabilities helping to avail exciting opportunities around them and feel good about their lives.

Depending on the kind of disability they are dealing with, technology has done up with the tools that best suit the individual for intelligent solutions for the problems they gave been dealing with their lives.

Research on Assistive Technology

Image Source: utc.fr

Almost every day a new milestone is being achieved in the field of research that is being carried for the advancement and improvement of assistive technology to help disabled people to live a better life.

Scientists examine and study different types of physical impairments and the challenges they pose to the people having them to come up with a feasible and effective technological solutions.

No doubt a lot of inventions and creations have been rolled out as a result of their untiring struggle and efforts. However, such kind of research facilities are either funded by governments, private sector or by non-profit organizations that have dedicated their operations for human welfare.

The research work done on different kind of assistive technologies encompassing a diverse spectrum of low and high-tech equipment plays an extremely crucial role in terms of thinking, inventing, testing and finally the practical application of these technologies to feasibly help patients with disabilities.

Assistive Technologies & its application

Image Source: researchmrc.org

Once these technologies have been developed and tested, the next step is of their application. Vision Impairment, deaf, mental health conditions, intellectual disability, brain injury, autism spectrum disorder and any kind of physical disability; these are the most significant forms of disabilities found in human and technology is devising effective solutions to all these problems.

Walking frames, wheelchairs, hearing aids, vision aids and computer-based communication aids. These are some of the most imperative technologies playing a prominent role in different societies around the world, enabling physically and mentally impaired people to enjoy independent living since they can conveniently enter the field of education and employment like a normal person.

Tech has enabled people to deal with disability for real

We have already read about the ways biologists and technologists around the world research and do efforts to propose the concepts of assistive technology. They are not only responsible for bringing the ideas forward but most of them also take responsibility to make such technology applicable in real life while assisting people who are disabled.

Stephen Hawking whose name and achievements in the field of time and space are not hidden from anyone. He was a physically impaired person and was suffering through slow-progressing form of motor neuron disease (also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis “ALS”).

It is this disease that makes a person paralyzed during the course of years not days. However, it is a slow killer for the patients having that particular disease. When it comes to the practical application of assistive technology then Steven Hawking is a person whose name has to be mentioned here.

Despite suffering from a deadly disease, he struggled and survived while leaving a fine example for us. He also served as the professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. He was a physicist, expert in astronomy and an author.

He was unable to speak but technology became his voice. He was being assisted by augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). It comprises systems identifying signs and gestures, speech-generating devices, mobile applications, communication and connections at the social media platforms.

With the help of a switch, Hawking was able to control a software enabling him to communicate. It is the technology that allow users to scan through the desired options and letters helping them to form words and sentences.

The application of assistive technology in the case of Stephen Hawking is no doubt a technological breakthrough that will help scientists to come up with more imperative solutions in future for the people with disabilities.

What do you think?

Written by Openiun