Cure for a Stroke

A good friend of mine suffered a stroke in December. He is one of those really healthy guys that just has bad genetics as he has suffered through several heart attacks as well. Unfortunately the stroke left him without the ability to speak. He is also unable to to use his right hand effectively but you wouldn't know that unless you are very observant or someone pointed it out to you.

Another friend came to me a month or so ago and said we need to use technology to help our friend recover and come up with a way for him to talk. He proposed creating a Google Glass application that can pair with a smartphone and talk for him. The original idea included looking at a keyboard on the Google Glass screen and spelling out words to be spoken by the phone. It sounds like a great idea, right?

Anyone who knows a stroke victim knows that there is often more damage than first meets the eye. While our friend can still read somewhat, he can't write, type, nor can he spell very well. It is very difficult for him to communicate with the rest of the world even though he can hear us and knows what we are saying. Talking with him is like playing 20 questions all the time and it gets old quickly.

A few more friends gathered with our stroke victim several weeks ago and flushed out some solutions. We decided that instead of trying to have our friend spell out words, we would use icons and pictures to represent phrases. We are doing prototyping work on a tablet computer. By selecting icons, we can create sentences to help our friend communicate. Now the trick is deciding what phrases are the most important and should be created first.

We have our friend's speech therapist who created a book of phrases that deal with time, eating, and other seemingly important stuff. While that is all fine, it doesn't represent the important conversations in our lives. I suggested a few more important phrases that probably need to be gathered first. Things like, "Are you single?" or "I'm a good listener." My friend is divorced and could probably use a date. These phrases are important for such activities but did not show up in the therapist's book. When I proposed them, you should have seen my friend light up.

The ability to communicate is important to us all. When my friend lost his ability to speak, he lost his purpose in life. Now we are trying to help him help others who have gone through similar ailments. Wouldn't it be great to add phrases like, "I have a tiny idea of what you are going through because I also suffered a stroke and lost the ability to speak," or, "Let me help you."

This is one of those projects that will never really end but it is a worthy cause for my time. I wish I could do more. While this may not be a cure for every stroke victim, it is something that will help a number of them and is very important to my friend. If you are interested in helping with the project, don't hesitate to leave a comment or contact me. One of the easiest ways to help is simply to think about your daily conversations and give us ideas of what phrases we should include in our app.