Online meet

Questions

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What kind of aphasia do you have?

• “ is not a form of aphasia. When he is speaking he suffers from spasm in his arms (His arms and hands then cover his mouth) and therefore he is difficult to understand. We would like a solution for that. We would like a solution for when he wants to stand in front of the class as public speaker, such that he becomes more understandable to the public.”

 

How bad are the spasms  on a scale of 1 to 5?

• “On a scale of 3 to 4. If he is very active and the tensions increases, the spasms gets worse.”

 

What does a day look like?

• “Every day is very different. He lives accompanied, although his mother comes every day to get him out of bed. He needs help with many things. However, the things that he can do himself, he does himself. Like he can eat bread by himself. He is also very active and is actively busy with many committees, even though he cannot walk and is in a wheelchair. He likes to talk about a lot of things. He was born prematurely and as a result has developed an oxygen deficiency, so therefore he cannot walk. When he is in bed he can't do anything, the guidance gets him out of bed and washes him and clothes him. He is very good at asking for help in such cases.”

 

What is the help he gets?

• “First of all, he has fulltime care. He also has had a mentor/coach for a few years. The mentor sees him once every two weeks, to see how he is doing. The mentor also guides him with certain fears, such as dogs. The mentor then gives him tips so that he can deal with it in a different way.”

 

Observations

 

First of all, we noticed that it was really hard to understand what Igor was saying. Especially since the first meeting was online, it was therefore even more difficult to answer questions. It was nice that Thea (his caretaker) could answer the questions for him.

Near the end of the interview, we noticed that Thea (His caretaker) was immediately thinking of possible solutions for his issues. She states: “Maybe something with a microphone. If he is spastic, then talking becomes much more difficult. Then, for example, he has to repeat a sentence five times. “

We also noticed that Igor and Thea were excited for a solution for his main problem, and that Thea also mentioned another issue that Igor faces in everyday life. She stated: “If he needs to use the toilet, he needs to use a urinal, but this must always be held (by a caretaker). There is therefore little privacy, a system for this would be nice.”

However since this was a secondary problem, we decided that we would focus on his first issue, which is finding a solution for keeping his hands low and improving his speech. We immediately brainstormed on some possible solutions for his issue.

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These brainstorm ideas include:

• Something to hold while talking 

• ‘A glove’ that indicates the position of the hands (when they are too high) 

• Something to distracts him/ calms him down when he is excited (To improve his speech) 

• Something for his phone (To hold)