eye gaze problems

[Guest]

Hello!
My dear father is suffering from MND.
He is unable to speak or write now.
The NHS provided an eye gaze system, but he cannot seem to get his eyes gazing accurately at the letters.
Does anyone have advice on how to use the eye gaze system.
We are really keen to know. It' extremely difficult to communicate with him without it!
Warm regards, Deans

[Ellie]

Hi Deans,

Welcome to the forum and sorry about your dad's diagnosis.

The key to eye gaze is calibration, calibration, calibration!! If it's not tracking his eyes accurately, the 'cursor' won't be placed on the correct letter/icon etc.

Also make sure direct sunlight isn't on the eye tracker and he isn't too near or far from the PC.

You may need to recalibrate it more than once and he should be sitting in the position he usually is for using the computer.

Is his head steady enough to maintain his position?

What system does he have? And was it working well for him when he tested it/when first set up for him?

Love Ellie.

[mickmac]

Sorry to hear about the problems with the eye tracker. Does your father wear glasses. I've heard that these can make the tracking difficult for some users. Also the size of the screen can be a factor if the eye gaze is attached to a large computer monitor. I have a 21 inch screen and the eye gaze has difficulty tracking my eyes around the edges of the screen. For best results you should have the on screen keyboard placed in or close to the middle of the screen.
Finally have you tried adjusting the settings for the keyboard. For any eye gaze system I've used you can adjust how long you have to focus on the letter before it's typed onto the screen. If the timer is too fast or too slow it can be difficult to control. I found it best to start with a slow time and gradually speed up over several weeks as you get used to it. There should also be a setting for how long you are looking at a letter before it starts to highlight. If this is too long your father may not be able to focus on the one letter for long enough and you might have to adjust the settings for it.
Try using the eye gaze yourself and see if you think it's difficult to use. Also is your father very old and is he in any way nervous of using a new system. You can reassure him that it takes a couple of weeks to get the hang of it. Other than that it's as Ellie said above about the calibration and the sun light at this time of the year. Let us know how you get on.

Mick.

[Deans]

Thanks so much! We've struggled so much, yet met so many angels on the way! Like yourselves!

[Terry]

Hi Deans and welcome to the forum;

Try to involve his speech therapist even though they are not normally great with these things but they probably can find someone to help him with problems from time to time.

There are quite a few systems and more than 4 eye gaze camera's so maybe there could be something that suits him better.

Also it's worth getting a low tech item like a abc perspex board that he can point his eyes to and you can read the letters out to make words. sometime it's not easy to use a computer, like in bed.

Again your/his speech therapist should be able to give you information and access the equipment for him.

Best wishes, Terry