Cerebral+palsy+and+the+Camera+Mouse

The many people with cerebral palsy have a difficult time using computers for any reason, because they don't have the fine motor movements to manipulate a mouse. In the Wikipedia article about cerebral palsy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy, Cerebral palsy (CP) denotes a group of non-progressive, non-contagious motor conditions that cause physical disability in human development, chiefly in the various areas of body movement. Many cases are congenital, coming at or about the time of birth, and/or are diagnosed at a very young age rather than during adolescence or adulthood. It can be defined as a central motor dysfunction affecting muscle tone, posture and movement resulting from a permanent, non-progressive defect or lesion of the immature brain. This means the person will need adaptive tech to access computers her whole life. The camera mouse found at http://www.cameramouse.org/about.html uses the webcam or video camera to identify head movements and allow the person to move a mouse on the computer screen. This is a mouse replacement that works on Windows computers. In the study they made 9 of 12 people with cerebral palsy were able to use the camera mouse. The download for this program is free. The person with the motor disability can access camera on their computer and use any Microsoft applications. While using the camera mouse, the person can easily blog for professional and social purposes. A friend I had back in 2001 with cerebral palsy had been given a computer, but couldn't access e mail or research on the Internet, because she couldn't use a mouse. The camera analyzes the head and neck motions of the person and moves the computer mouse. Since this is a free download, “1,800,000 downloads of Camera Mouse from this site since the program was made available in June 2007.” “Cerebral Palsy, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, ALS, Multiple Sclerosis, Traumatic Brain Injury, various neurological disorders use this program and its predecessors to run all types of computer software.” Since blogging is important for work and accessibility for social reasons, the disabled person misses out on accessibility without adaptive technology.