Enabling your home means finding solutions that meet your particular needs. Take for instance, the needs of Cathy Gamble and Julia Allen. Both women have impaired vision, but have taken two different approaches to making their homes more accessible and enjoyable.Cathy Gamble
Cathy Gamble's vision is limited as a result of lupus, a disease that causes the immune system to attack healthy tissues -- in this case, Cathy's vision. Cathy, a graduate student at the University of California, San Diego, finds great difficulty in reading, writing school papers or even dialing the phone.
Because Cathy and her husband rent an apartment, modifications to their home just aren't possible. Instead, Cathy consulted the San Diego Center for the Blind and the Department of Rehabilitation in her area. Both resources can help those who are physically-challenged reach his or her highest level of independence.
In Cathy's case, the two agencies helped her obtain:
- Task lighting that would safely provide concentrated light to help Cathy see more clearly.
- A mini-viewer that enlarges text on reading materials. Cathy simply has to pass the viewer over the text to magnify.
- Zoom Text software. This computer software enables Cathy to type her papers and work on assignments. The software magnifies the screen font up to sixteen times, allowing Cathy to use both the Internet and e-mail once again -- something she was unable to do for the last two years.
Julia AllenJulia Allen has very limited sight and depth perception. She detects only motion with her left eye, and has only 2 degrees of vision (instead of the 140 degrees present with unimpaired vision). Light often washes out color for Julia -- allowing her to see only white.
Because of these limitations, Julia has found it impossible to enjoy the charming architectural features of her 1920s-era home. Architect Benjamin Claven worked with Julia to add dimension and create additional visual features through the use of color.
As a result, each room had bold colors and unique painting techniques to create depth and help Julia navigate her home. Suddenly, features previously unseen came into focus.
"It was like living in a cloud," Julia says, "but the next day, it all had life. Everything had so much warmth and was so beautiful."
And beauty is important to Julia, who wants her guests to feel at home and find her home as attractive as she does accessible.
Before the additional of color, Julia lived in only three rooms of her house -- the others were intimidating and inaccessible."It can make the difference in really living in your home and not living in your home," Julia says.
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