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Two new low vision aids caught Bill Harvey's attention at Optrafair
More and more patients are asking about the ever increasing numbers of electronic low vision aids now available. I am glad to see that the cost of these is slowly reaching levels one might reasonably expect, and there have been definite improvements in reliability and robustness.
Optelec had a wide range of products on show at its stand. The one which caught my eye was the ClearReader+ which looks like a small desktop shredder (Figure 1). The instrument is positioned over a piece of text and the scanning camera pulled out of the main unit so it is pointing towards the writing. By use of a simple array of well contrasting buttons, the user may then select a voice to read out the text. Ease of use, good design and effective and rapid text recognition make this an exciting product in my view. Cost is around the £2,000 mark.
Bierley was promoting its latest product, the MPD-12-mono (Figure 2). This is a MonoMouse combined with a 12-inch screen, allowing magnified scanning of text. The screen also displays a large character clock and can be used as a digital frame for photos of family and friends. This is an interesting combination that is proving popular with patients who might find prefer this to the more stigmatised appliances one often associates with the low vision world. It is priced around £300. ?