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Helping children with complex needs understand grief through special toys |
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A Kingston University, London PhD student has created a set of toys to help children with complex needs learn how to express grief and deal with other difficult emotions. Sarah Helton has created Good Grief Toys to help children understand and communicate about death, bereavement, grief and loss.
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Rita Ebel – That's how she rolls |
Rita Ebel has become known as the "Lego granny": Since accessibility is still a scarce commodity, she designs ramps made of interlocking plastic bricks. Boxes of the colourful bricks are stored in her house and are transformed into ramps with creative patterns. Why she herself is dependent on accessibility, why she never loses her smile and how she otherwise rolls, she tells us on REHACARE.com.
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Dementia: Integrated radar technology makes care easier |
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Severely ill dementia patients usually only react via facial expressions and gestures. A remedy to this can now be found in a table that uses the latest radar technology to connect commercially available objects with interactive communication technology on a surface. It can be used in occupational therapy for people with dementia as well as in individual care situations.
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Assistive devices in the workplace: Making communication accessible |
Especially for blind and visually impaired people, the lack of or non-working augmentative communication devices frequently means that they have no prospect of participating in the workplace. We discussed with Bruno Behrendt from Papenmeier why screen readers are sometimes nothing more than pretty tools and learned why technical support is THE perennial issue when it comes to customer service.
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Stroke: Call 112, every minute counts |
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In Germany, about 270,000 strokes occur every year – not seldom with a fatal outcome. Therefore, the maxim for a stroke is "time is brain": every minute counts. Those affected must be treated as quickly as possible to reduce the risk of permanent damage. The nationwide "Day against the Stroke" takes place on 10 May.
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WheelSim VR: learning safe electric wheelchair operation thanks to virtual reality |
LIFEtool is as non-profit organization that counsels and equips people with the tools, they need to be successful. The Austrian company now successfully adapted its 2D-based simulator WheelSim to virtual reality. VR training enables power wheelchair users to practice difficult tasks in a safe environment.
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Algorithm for shoe-based blind assistance system |
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The shoe from the company Tec-Innovation warns blind and visually impaired people of obstacles thanks to ultrasonic sensors. Computer scientists at TU Graz have now developed a camera-based AI image recognition system for this purpose.
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