By Mark Dreger
Volunteers and student engineers gathered at UBCO campus Saturday to help build LipSync, an affordable mouth-operated controller designed to help quadriplegic men and women navigate computers and smartphones.
鈥淚t really means a lot to me and the community,鈥� said Ean Price, an Okanagan resident that has been using the device on his wheelchair for the last few months. 鈥淭hese devices are going to help a lot of people around here.鈥�
Price has suffered since birth from muscular dystrophy , a degenerative disorder that slowly weakens muscles over time. Diagnosed at 10 months old, Price sat in his first wheelchair at three or four-years-old and now after 30 years has been upgrading chairs as the ability to move has gotten increasingly worse.
鈥淲e do have a fairly large disabled community and a lot of people, even that I know in wheelchairs that could use this, don鈥檛 know about it. They haven鈥檛 heard about it,鈥� said Price.
鈥淭his is really good to open people鈥檚 minds and show people that there is a device out there that will allow them to continue on in life and it鈥檚 great for me to watch somebody use the device for the first time and go, 鈥榟oly crap, now I can text again.鈥欌��
Over a dozen students and volunteers took part at UBCO to learn how to solder and assemble the device. Once ready, participants started building devices to be given to those in need.
Prashi, a second-year engineering student at UBCO, took part in the volunteer build to help make life easier for those that will use the LipSync.
鈥淧ersonally, I鈥檓 happy to know that I鈥檓 helping someone鈥檚 life be much more easy on them, to say the least,鈥� Prashi said. 鈥淚 understand that there鈥檚 a lot of people who do not have the opportunity to live out basic lifestyles like we can and knowing that I can contribute to their lifestyle and make it a lot better for them and make it a lot easier for them just makes me know that this effort is worth doing.鈥�
When you gain a small amount back, it鈥檚 like climbing Mt. Everest, said one volunteer.
鈥淎nd it is so fulfilling and so joyful to a person who鈥檚 had so much lost that it鈥檚 just a very important thing to help people get this independence back,鈥� said Lynne Taylor, who took part in the event after her son became a quadriplegic after a car accident.
The Neil Squire Society, the non-profit releasing the LipSync, helped Taylor鈥檚 son use head control technology so he could operate keyboards and TVs again to get back in touch with the world.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e injured, you lose so much and it鈥檚 really wonderful to do something normal again,鈥� Taylor said. 鈥淪o because Neil Squire had helped us, I wanted to give back to the society by coming and doing this.鈥�
Technology has allowed Price to stay one step ahead of his disorder, but moving on to new technologies has been a common occurrence, from using a mouse to voice recognition.
鈥淚 woke up one day and wasn鈥檛 able to use a track ball,鈥� Price said, 鈥渨hich I鈥檝e been using for probably seven or eight years, and so immediately I had to find a way to adapt and luckily there鈥檚 a lot of technology out there so I was able to find a touchpad, but over the years it has become harder for me to move my thumbs and so now this [LipSync] is the next step.鈥�
According to the Neil Squire Society website, an estimated 1,000,000 people in Canada and the United States have limited or no use of their arms. Devices similar to the LipSync are so expensive that the average person who needs one wouldn鈥檛 be able to afford it, but LipSync has created their open source project to allow quadriplegics to use the new technology for less than $300.
The Neil Squire Society has a list of 300 people who require LipSyncs internationally.
鈥淭o be able to operate a computer again is mind blowing; it really opens your world up,鈥� Price said. 鈥淎nd not just the computer but even a tablet or a smartphone, so you can type, you can text, you can do everything that I used to be able to do.鈥�
