Dan is a 78-year old client of the Lighthouse of Collier. He sought out the services of the Lighthouse because he was having trouble reading. He has hereditary cataracts in addition to glaucoma.
His vision impairment was affecting his activities of daily living. But, what upset him the most was how difficult it had become for him to read print. He is an elder in his church. His greatest passion is teaching the Bible and providing sound guidance regarding its interpretation. In order to accomplish his ministry, he spends many hours studying history and theology. He had a CCTV, and magnifiers that were supplied to him by the instructor. However, these low vision devices were not helping him to continue his studies to the extent that he needed. His eyes would become too tired.
The instructor introduced a portable CCTV that had OCR (Optical Character Recognition). The device could take a picture of the page he was reading and then read it back to him. He could control where he wanted to be in the text so that he could go backwards and forwards with ease as he studied. He was thrilled by the OCR capability. The low vision adaptation gave him the ability to continue his studies despite his visual impairment. His wife said he had been in a deep depression. She said his mood and motivation returned with the introduction of the OCR technology.
