A (4:11)

I love how everyone has different approaches to this. And so one tip that Don just gave is to have everything ready to go before you even start. And that way you're not frantically hunting around in your kitchen to try and find something dia. What about for you? What would your tips be that have really helped you the most in terms of figuring out how to stay relaxed, have fun, and get what you need to get done in the kitchen.

B (4:45)

As Don said, I also put everything out on the counter as I know what I need. All my spices, all my refrigerated items, and I keep those on the counter and then I add those. So that's one of the things I line up everything. So my three items that I absolutely love, love, love are I have a lot of countertop lights that I work with. I have a light, a gooseneck light that is mobile, and I can point that over the pot on top of the stove. So it helps me to judge if I'm making soup. I know how much liquid or oil that Comes to the surface, I have to skim off. My lights are my life. I adore them. And I have at least 10 lights around the counter right now, and they're always on during the day. They help me to see where I'm walking and also, especially when I'm cooking. So that's the one thing. And the second thing is I use my hand a lot. I feel. I feel what's on the counter. I use my hand for measuring. And that's something that my mother did, I never did when I had vision. And now I'm using that again. And that's really interesting that, you know, it's kind of a full circle thing. And then my third thing is I have an electric stove, which I'm not fond of, and I keep the electric burners on low, and then I slowly turn them a little higher, and I stand over the item that I'm cooking. I don't walk away. And it's pretty boring, but I have to do that. I have to slow down and learn that I can't walk away like I used to. Somebody told me this, which is quite interesting. If you lose your sight or you lose any of your senses, your other senses kick in. So my hearing kicks in, and my tastes kick in a great deal more than they did before when I had vision. So that's usually what works for me. As I said about the lighting, that's so, so important. And then one of the most important things that I'm finding is to take inventory in your cabinets, instead of buying another olive oil container. Look in the cabinet. You probably have one. Where? Look in the cabinet. You probably have garlic powder. I have like four garlic powders right now. And I keep buying them because I didn't know that I had them, because I can't see them. So that's kind of another little tip.

A (7:28)

You know, one of the things we hear a lot from our listeners is that they feel like it's harder to leave the house. You know, there are new logistics to consider, plus, it might feel overwhelming because there are really just a lot of unknowns. We were delighted to have James Ashworth, who is vice president of customer care at Southwest Airlines, as well as a low vision traveler himself. And James talks through some of these unknowns with air travel. First, let's hear some tips for when you get to the airport.

D (8:06)

Because every airport, you know, operates somewhat independently. But most airline employees, obviously, Southwest for sure, and then the airlines that I flown, they will help you navigate getting in and out of the airport. But basically, what you do is you let them know if you have accessibility needs. So the personnel at the airline will be aware of what your accessibility is. And then they would know. When James Ashworth walks up and checks in, they can look at the PNR and know, hey, you know, there's an accessibility need. They can ask you what, what services you might need or what help you might need getting around the airport.

A (8:42)

That's great. We talked about getting to the airport, into your plane and such. And presumably you're traveling with some kind of bag. Maybe it's a carry on or maybe you've done checked baggage. Do you have any thought, whether they are technical in nature or not, about how people can find their bag once it's time to grab it?

D (9:07)

Yeah, you know, this is where you can get real creative. You can use tactile markers on your particular bag. If you check a bag, depending on your level of vision, you can use color striping. I've seen that done before. Those are what I'd call, you know, non technical, if you will. And then there are some more advanced things that you can do, like air tags.

A (9:31)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

D (9:33)

Recently I've talked to individuals and I. I have an airtag inside my bag if I have to check it. But air tags are easy to help you locate. And there's other pieces of technology that you could stick in your bag that you can use apps on your phone to civilize, you know, an audible alert inside your bag to help you locate it. I think anyone who's nervous or has trepidation, I would encourage you to maybe the first time you travel, maybe travel with somebody. If you're like me and there are airports that you frequent, I can assure you that you will have more confidence the more you go in and out of a particular airport. You'll just get familiar with the airport layout. You'll get familiar with the concessions, and when things are different, you'll recognize it. You'll be able to ask. I think that builds confidence. And so I would absolutely encourage your listeners to just try it, give it a try.

A (10:32)

I totally agree, James. If this is something that you want to do, just jump in and do it. Of course, that's way easier said than done. And that's not always because you're nervous or you're hesitant. Sometimes it's about just not feeling motivated, not caring about doing those things. Even if it might be something that you used to be really enthusiastic about. It turns out that those feelings can be really common after a major life change like vision loss. We had a fantastic conversation with ophthalmologist Dr. John shepherd about this, you might not even realize you have depression. And if you do, the method of addressing that depression might be a lot different than you think. Let's take a listen. Are there things that people can do when that depression is definitely related directly to this vision loss that they've got?

E (11:33)

You bet. So if you are discussing this with your primary care doctor, they do have different options available to them. Certainly there are a number of different medications that can medically treat depression. The primary care doctor may refer you to a counseling professional, a mental health professional who basically can administer different therapies. One example is something called cognitive behavioral therapy. And these can be very helpful to address the depression. I would say though, and I think in terms of your bringing this up, and this is so relevant, if the irreversible vision loss is a big part of the cause of depression, then low vision rehabilitation services have been studied in regards to treating depression have been shown to be extremely helpful. Now, what are low vision rehabilitation services? So to give you an example, I'm a low vision rehabilitation specialist. So I'm a board certified ophthalmologist. You typically go to the eye doctor to manage your eye disease and prescribe glasses. So that's not the work that I do. I actually manage the impairment caused by the vision loss. So when a patient comes to my office, there is a about a two hour initial visual visit. And during that time we're doing a lot of things. First of all, we're doing an extensive functional history to understand what areas of daily living the individual is having challenges because of the irreversible vision loss. We then look at how they're adjusting and adapting to the vision loss. And that's where I will always administer a depression scale test so I can talk directly to the patient and in my exam chair if there is a reason that they need to see someone else like the primary care doctor to address that, we can have a compassionate discussion about that. I will do a test to evaluate the quantity and quality of the patient's remaining vision. So it helps me to know what they have to work with. And then we work with the wealth of resources that are available to the patient. So this can be adaptive equipment, magnifying tools, telescopic lenses to electronic magnifiers, headborne video eyewear, working with computers and smartphones, addressing the challenges and seeing what types of adjustments can help people to move forward and do the best that they can with the vision that they have. So in my office, I'll develop A rehabilitation plan. And I have occupational therapists that work alongside of me that can implement the plan. And they do that in the patient's home, and they do it in the office, where they're working with adaptive equipment with the patients in the areas of daily living in which they're struggling, they can suggest modifications that can be made in the environment in their home to help them to live as safely as they can. We also will discuss other services available in the community and online resources such as Hadley. Wonderful online resources. And that way you can become familiarized with all the things that can equip you to deal with these challenges as best as you can. And those types of services make a dent on depression. And so you may need the medical treatment, you may need the counseling. But being aware of the resources and managing the challenges caused by irreversible vision loss certainly goes at the core of why depression with irreversible vision loss occurs. And so it's a wonderful treatment, if you will.

A (15:37)

I really like how Dr. Shepherd frames this. You know, addressing some of those practical challenges that are keeping you from doing what you want to do can be such a relief, and it can leave you feeling a lot more hopeful about doing the things that you. That you used to really enjoy. I think a big part of that is finding the right tools that are going to work for you. So that's something that comes up a lot on Hadley Presents. We like to introduce people to new tools, and we like to explore some of those things that have been around for a while, but that people just may not know about. Sam Seavey from The Blind Life YouTube channel always has such great info on this kind of thing, whether it's high tech gadgets or maybe something a little simpler. So we asked him to share some of his favorite tools with us at

F (16:31)

the nonprofit where I work is it's usually people losing vision later in life due to some. Some reason. And so they're brand new to this. They have no idea about it. They don't know how to navigate those waters. And a lot of them, they don't necessarily want to dive fully into this. Into this world.

A (16:52)

Yeah.

F (16:52)

And they don't, you know, they don't have these, these grand goals of, you know, I'm going to be a tech wizard and know everything, and they just want to. They just want some solutions for everyday life.

A (17:04)

That's exactly right.

D (17:05)

Yeah.

F (17:05)

And so I love to focus on those types of things. And one thing I. Especially for people with low vision, one thing I recommend quite often is the, The. The Old school tried and true. Monocular, it's, it's one of the first tools that you're introduced to when you start to lose vision and can be very helpful for a wide variety of things. A monocular, if anybody's curious, is, well, just, just one half of a pair of binoculars. You take one of them, like a telescope and shrink it down to something handheld, something portable, and you've got a monocular. But they're, they're, they're super versatile. They can be used for distance viewing, they could be used for, for near viewing. I know a lot of people that will use them to, to see their computer screens, to read with, to watch television. It's just, just a wide variety of things that they could be useful for. And oftentimes you can even get, put them on a lanyard, wear them around your neck. They're very low key, you know, they just fit in the palm of your hand. So if you're, if you're concerned about being out in public using some type of big, bulky attention drawing device, you don't have to worry about that with a monocular.

A (18:21)

We do have a tendency to talk a lot about smartphones on this show, but we also know they can be really intimidating. Let's hear Sam's take on that. Do you have some thoughts for things that have been made a little bit easier for you when it comes to technology that might actually be motivators for people?

F (18:42)

I run into this all the time. I'm sure you guys do as well, especially working with, like I said, people that maybe aren't, aren't tech savvy and they're new to all of this and we're trying to stress to them how helpful this would be. You know, if we just dedicate some time to it, it's going to be incredibly helpful for you. But I always like to point out that, you know, it can be overwhelming, especially when you're like, okay, we're jumping on the computer and we're going to learn this or we're learning the smartphone. And then you start to say, oh, it can do this and it could do that, it can do this and here's where it can help you. And it can be overwhelming for this, this new user. So I always like to stress, okay, baby steps, you don't have to learn all of this right now. I do this a lot whenever I'm teaching mobile screen readers because that's one of the things I work on a lot with, with, with clients is learning a mobile screen reader, like voiceover talkback And I say, you know, it can do a lot of things. There's a lot of gestures. Two finger, three finger, four finger, you know, zigzag, swiping, double tapping, triple tapping, all of this stuff. But you don't need to know 99% of that. I've been using it for years. I'm an expert on all these things and I don't even use 99% of that stuff. Let's focus on the foundational skills, the fundamentals here. These three gestures, that's 95% of what you're going to need is these three gestures. So let's just baby steps, let's take it slowly and just focus on this right now and then we can build on the other stuff later. But I think that helps for a lot of people. It kind of helps to calm the anxiety and put it a little bit into perspective. Quite often working with clients, they say, well, I just want to, I just want to be able to delete emails. I was like, okay, yeah, I get that. But I'm going to teach you these gestures first because then you'll be able to delete those emails, but you'll also be able to go on Facebook. You'll also be able to check your voicemail. It opens up a whole other world of possibilities as soon as we just learn these couple of little gestures.

A (20:43)

Thank you, Sam. You are absolutely right about that. Now, because we're talking technology, we pretty much have to talk about AI. It's a topic that comes up again and again and people really want to know about it, but not just kind of the hype with it. Is it actually a useful thing, particularly when it comes to vision loss? So Eric Bokledge from Second Sense in Chicago, along with Steve Kelly from Hadley, joined us earlier this year and we had a great conversation where we drilled down and showed specific scenarios and specific AI tools that might work best in those scenarios. Here's just a little sample of that conversation. So here's something I struggle with and this is probably one that I will ask family members more often than anything else. What is this mystery box in the pantry or you know, the mystery bottle in the fridge? Is there a good way that the two of you have for doing this using maybe one of these tech tools?

G (21:54)

I do, and it's actually a two part answer. So a lot of those products have either barcodes or QR codes on them that you can use the product identifier in seeing AI to be able to see and if it will read that, then it works for you. And if it can't read it, it'll tell you that it can't read it. Well, at that point you can just switch channels and use the read function and it will read whatever is on that particular container or box.

A (22:27)

That's right. And seeing AI wins again. Because this is what I do when I feel like I have a little more than 10 seconds. Because sometimes it is a challenge to find that barcode or to read the text on that round can. And this again goes back to efficiency. Do you opt for the I'm going to do this with AI or optical character recognition or what have you, or do I involve a human? Now, the one thing that I do is meta glasses and this is something they're surprisingly good at. For a tool that was not built for this purpose. It will use a combination of looking, maybe it glimpses a part of the logo and it glimpses a bit of the text and it will put that together to make a pretty good guess of what this product is that you're holding. So that would be just saying, hey, meta, what's in front of me? Or what product am I holding? And the fact that it's hands free makes that a really nice option as well.

H (23:42)

You know, over the years I've used a number of different code readers and like you, Ricky, I think I found them challenging in the sense that you, you either have to spin it around a couple of times, you've got to be able to see at least you have a general idea where the code is. And they've gotten much faster. Again, to repeat, the usefulness of that has been particularly good with that. And like Eric was saying, just with the read function, you know, you catch a couple words and boom, you know, it's a can of soup and it's tomato soup.

A (24:14)

How do people think in general about which tool to choose? Are there criteria that you can mention that might help in that decision making process?

G (24:27)

So I think one of the key things is that it's user dependent. So each person's vision loss is their own and how they need supports and assistance is different from the next person. And that's not just a function of do they still have residual vision or not, but all sorts of varieties in that. Right? So what I recommend to my clients is that they use each of these in different environments so that they can see how well they work for them and then use that experience of their own to help define which tool they're going to use in what scenario. Because sometimes people find one interface easier to work than the other. One or they may find that their day to day usage needs require something different from the other one. So I have them explore each of these when they can and make a decision from there.

H (25:21)

Yeah, I was just going to say, Eric, I think you're so right. The whole person dependent thing is really critical because there are a lot of tools out there and we're all different. So these tools are going to work differently for different people. And, and the thing to do is to figure out, you know, which one works best for you. And you know, the last thing I would add is as I was looking over the list and thinking back through, you know, like the, you know, how I've done things in the past, I just realized that there, you know, as somebody who had pretty decent vision for quite a while, there's a certain amount of this that really touched my self esteem, you know, so I was really reluctant sometimes to try some of this, the stuff that, you know, the handheld magnifier or some of the other, even some of the smartphone stuff out in public, around people at a cash register or whatever. And you know, I just realized today it's like, you know, just like that, I'll just say, oh, you know, I don't see, well, can you read that to me? Can you prompt me or you know, give me some guidance or something like that. And that's so dramatically different than what it was like say 15 or 20 years ago. So you know, kind of again, what, what you were both saying, it's like relax, take a breath and you know, we all do these things in different ways and it's okay, you know, just figure out your, your own way and don't, don't let it steal your self esteem. That's the other important thing.

A (26:45)

I always love it when that happens. We start out talking about something very practical, you know, how to choose the right tech tool. And we do get great info on that, but also we get to dive into some of those things that you might be feeling about having to use a tool, having to do things a little differently than you're used to, and those are the kinds of conversations that we'll continue to have on this show. And if there's a topic that we haven't explored yet and you really wish that we would, let us know. We have contact info at the end of the episode and of course we'll also have link links to the full episodes for the clips that we've shared today. You can find all that in our show notes if you want to check out the episodes and of course, each of those episodes has their own show notes, so it's a lot to dive into, but I hope you have fun with it. Thanks again to our fantastic guests and as always, thank you all so much for listening. Got something to say? Share your thoughts about this episode of Hadley Presents or make suggestions for future episodes. We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email@podcastadleyhelps.org that's P O D C A S T hadleyhelps.org or leave us a message at 847-784-2870. Thanks for listening.