Visually Impaired Get A Taste Of Sight With New Device
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A new device is helping the visually impaired do with the tongue some of the work the eyes can no longer do. NY1's Health reporter Kafi Drexel filed the following report. Twenty-six-year-old Nihal Erkan was totally blind by age seven, and she never thought she would be able to make out shapes or letters again. But a new device is now helping her do what she thought was impossible.
With a piece of technology called the BrainPort, the ability to identify letters and shapes now seems to be at the tip of her tongue. Mounted to her sunglasses, BrainPort captures images on a digital camera, pixilates and converts them into an electrical signal, then sends them to a sensor she places on her tongue.
"When I was trying first this device I said, 'Wait a minute, I can recognize the shapes!' That was incredible," says Erkan. "I was shocked I could recognize the shapes."
Erkan is part of a 10-patient study at Lighthouse International to test how well BrainPort works. Produced by Wicab, a biomedical engineering company based in Wisconsin it still needs FDA approval.
Dr. William Seiple, who runs the Lighthouse study, says he is impressed with what he sees.
"I think it's outstanding if people who haven't seen before can now perceive a written or drawn shape or letter on a piece of paper. That's something they could never do," says Seiple.
Lighthouse International has set up real-world environments, like a kitchen, where subjects can test the limits of the device.
BrainPort helps Erkan to figure out place settings and find her glass. It is only meant to supplement rather than replace other assistance tools for the visually impaired like canes and guide dogs, but with the help of the device subjects like Erkan are also learning to walk down hallways, finding elevator buttons, doorways and signs.
With some tweaking from the manufacturer and proper training, Seiple says there may be no limit to what the new technology can do. He says one hope for the company may be to use it as a reading machine.
Erkan hopes to fulfill another dream.
"I don't have a child, but I was thinking if I could have a child, I was thinking, how could I teach my child how to read and write before they go to school? Because I want to," says Erkan. "After I saw this device, maybe I could see what they write. I can teach them now."