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Help For Those With Shaky Hands
maotx writes "IBM has developed an adjustible mouse adapter that compensates for the shakes of patients with hand tumors and other causes of uncontrollable shaking. According to the International Essential Tremor Foundation, in the US alone nearly 10 million people are affected by essential tremor, the most common form of hand tremors. This adapter will plug in between the mouse and computer and is compatible with existing mice. No word on which port is supported (ps/2, usb, etc). More info here, here, and here. It is expected that IBM will sell the adapter for under $100 USD."
It is about time that somebody entered this market. I suppose that because age is a risk factor for essential tremor, the need for such a device is only going to increase given the age group that has now become completely dependent upon computers. Most folks I have known with essential tremor (and patients of mine when I was in the clinical side of things) were old enough that they did not routinely use computers. For those that did, keyboarding did not prove as much a problem as using the mouse which requires fine motor skills that often enhance the tremors. Trackballs helped these folks a bit more, but I really would like to see how these compensatory mice work for these patients.
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You'd think you'd be able to smooth out mouse input in software. I admit, the platform independant aspect is nice, but still...
I wonder what kind of filtering they do for "inadvertant clicks"? Clicks associated with mouse movement? Triple clicks?
It's just a hardware adapter, it can't see anything more than your mouse driver can see. Why can't we just write something like this for Windows or Linux? Seems like these companies want to sell $100 hardware device rather than let people download a $10 software package.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I think this may help people with parkinsons although they do shake quite violently (in many cases).
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Isn't that what "Mouse Smoothing" does?
I'm embarassed to say I never bothered looking it up as I leave it at the default levels. However, I always assume it removed the jitteriness from the movement of a mouse so your movements would be more smooth/fluid.
How are you supposed to control the software or
even install the software? Right, you use the mouse.
Oh, wait...
This device comes with a big fat knob and 3 tall
switches. The worst trouble will be getting the
plug connected.
This causes shaking of the hands (ranging from 'ever so slight' to 'disturbing') because of a flaked out thyroid. Medication helps now but there were weird days when I couldn't use a mouse. I got one of those softball sized trackballs and used it on those days. This looks cool and could really help with people who suffer from hyp(o|er)thyroidism and Hashimoto's. The benefits are obvious for Parkinson's type diseases too.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
now you can use it at the internet cafe, or at home and at work or school, or the business center at the hotel or whatever, and you don't have to wait for the world to catch up and add support in their drivers, or worry about whether the hotel is running Windows 98 still or whether your office will allow the drivers or whatnot.
It's a lot more enabling to give someone a small device that solves their problem discreetly rather than no option except to wait for the world to a) realize a problem and b) work to fix it on a wide scale.