Visually impaired people

Packaging requirements can include child resistant closures, the word POISON being embossed along the side of the packaging so that the container can be identified by visually impaired people or in the dark. 

It is commonly heard today that 60 is the new 40, and, undoubtedly, many older persons would bristle to be considered disabled. Indeed, as the oldest baby boomers (those born in the mid-1940s) embrace healthy lifestyles and benefit from improved medical advances, there no longer is reason to consider every older person as actually or potentially disabled. However, the map to the fountain of youth as yet remains undiscovered. As our bodies and minds age, they increasingly fall to disabling conditions. About 55% of the nation s 10 million blind or visually impaired people are 65 years or older. By the time anyone reaches the age of 85, the chance that he or she will have a severe disability is nearly 50 %. There... 

The adapted kitchen sink is designed for wheelchair-seated people with varying disabilities but also accommodates visually impaired people. Since it is impossible to come up with a universal design for all disabilities, some alternative suggestions are provided. 

Lack of visual perception is paralleled with a loss of independence. In today s society where social independence is important, visually impaired people like everyone else want to live without depending on others. They want to travel without fear of getting hit or lost. They want to reach information individually as everyone else does. Therefore, those who do not have the benefit of sight require assistive devices to be independent, such as for navigation, for reading signs, etc. 

Toward the objective of the research, vibrotactile feedback is chosen in order to guide visually impaired people. Considering clothing system requirements and ultrasonic sensor power requirements, the type of vibration motor is selected. In order to... 

Figure 3.14 Final smart shirt prototype for visually impaired people.

Within this chapter we have demonstrated the development of a smart shirt prototype enabling obstacle avoidance for visually impaired people. However, based on the study presented here, the following futore research work is suggested ... 

S. Kursun Bahadir, V. Koncar, F. Kalaoglu, Wearable obstacle detection system fuUy integrated to textile structures for visually impaired people. Sens. Actuators A Phys. 179 (07/2012) 297-311. 

S. K. Bahadir, Wearable Obstacle Avoidance System Integrated With Conductive Yams for Visually Impaired People (Ph.D. thesis), Universite LiUe, Sciences et Technologies, Computer Engineering/Automation, France, 11/2011. 

Many of the examples quoted in this section give general advice rather than quantified control data. For example, the report on shared surface streets produced by the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association does not contain any quantified data but quotes comments made by their members at a series of focus groups. The publication is nevertheless useful to gain an understanding of the problems experienced by visually impaired people in shared streets. 

Although this report does not have any specific control data it is based on discussions with focus groups of visually impaired people. 

TRL PR 82 Accidents involving visually impaired people using public transport or walking, 1995... 

There are estimated to be nearly one million visually impaired people in Britain, 90 % of whom are over 65 years of age [147]. AMD is the most frequently occurring disease that results in permanent vision loss in this age group [137, 148]. 

There is a great need to develop electronic Braille screens to allow easier access for visually impaired people to computer based information that now dominates modem lifestyles. These screens require multiple actuators that can be individually addressed and positioned beneath each Braille pin. Due to the close spacing and small size of the pins, conventional motor systems are unsuitable. Actuator materials are ideal for this application and the development of the electronic Braille screen represents a tremendous opportunity to develop a worthwhile, commercial product using polymer actuators. The specifications required of an actuator material to operate Braille pins are well defined, with a displacement of >0.5 mm in <0.5 s the key requirement. Since there must be tactile resistance to enable the pin to be read , the actuators will almost inevitably operate... 

Tactiie warning devices (TWDs) A small raised triangle applied to a package to alert visually impaired people to the fact that they are handling the container of a dangerous chemical... 

Initial Development of a PDA Mobility Aid for Visually Impaired People... 

To further understand the problems of navigation for visually impaired people, and determine requirements for our system, we carried out a semi-structured interview with a middle aged, blind individual who worked as a transcription officer for the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) in the UK. The interview covered navigation in the world and how this was accomplished. 

The Westminster guidelines support their recommendations with this is a variation to national standards but it is believed to be detectable by the range of visually impaired people. This has been backed up by laboratory tests. ... 

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