{"id":3637,"date":"2016-08-10T12:03:07","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T16:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/?p=3637"},"modified":"2016-08-10T13:33:39","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T17:33:39","slug":"is-he-still-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/is-he-still-there\/","title":{"rendered":"Is “He” Still There?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pr<\/a>\u201cIt could happen to anyone. Maybe to the person who passes your house each day on the way to work or the man sitting across from you on the train. This time it happened to my ozeret. A very nice lady who has been coming to clean for me for years,\u201d relates Yonit\u00a0 Hagoel-Karnieli, Director of Ezer Mizion’s<\/em> Speech Generating Devices Lending Center. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cShe was telling me about her brother-in-law who had a sudden heart attack. The heart attack led to a stroke which resulted in almost complete paralysis. From being a beloved member of a family, an active community member, he became a nothing- a “vegetable”. My ozeret was so upset. It was as if they suddenly lost him except that there he was- breathing but not much more. He couldn\u2019t move. He couldn\u2019t speak. Still a member of the family but no longer part of them. There was nothing they could do. They had to accept it. The doctors recommended putting him into a skilled care nursing facility where he would be \u2018taken care of\u2019. They\u2019d feed him. Keep him clean and warm. He could live like that for many years. And he did live there. For one a half years. The family visited often but it was really among themselves that they conversed. The visit to the patient was a sham. Like a child playing make-believe. They were getting used to things. To talking around Moti instead of to him. His movements were no more human than the machinery that surrounded him. A slight grunt here and there. The Moti they had known was gone. Oh, they could pretend when they wanted to that the bit of a sound emitted was in response to his wife\u2019s funny story. But they all knew it wasn\u2019t real…Or was it? The same strange grunt as to last week\u2019s joke. An almost whispered hum upon hearing about the bank\u2019s mistake in his wife\u2019s account. It couldn\u2019t be real\u2026 could it?\u00a0 \u201d\u00a0\u00a0 My ozeret wanted my opinion. Was he comprehending their conversation? I decided to give it a try. \"click2speak-<\/a>I visited Moti Ayish armed with a large board. On one end was a picture of his daughter. On the other was a picture of his son. \u2018Look at your daughter,\u2019 I asked him. His eyes slowly turned. \u2018Look at your son.\u2019 His eyes moved to the other side of the board. Again. And again. I asked him a question and told him that if the answer is \u2018no\u2019 to close his eyes and if the answer is \u2018yes\u2019 to open his eyes and blink. He did. More questions. More answers. The real Moti was still there! Hidden under all that paralysis but still there. I gave the family exercises to do and brought them some devices to use from Ezer Mizion\u2019s Lending Center that will enable communication using eye movement alone. After six months, he was in a rehab center and improving fast. Who can fathom the joy as he actually took part in conversations using a device called Click2Speak. \u00a0The family laughed aloud when he told his wife to withdraw 2000 shekels from the bank. \u201cWhat shall I use it for?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeat. Vegetables. Also a dress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA dress?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, several.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a grandson was being annoying as per his job description as a child: \u201cStop annoying your mother,\u201d clicked the hitherto \u2018vegetable\u2019 grandfather using nothing but his eye movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are you?\u201d asked his visitor one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cSad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSad? But you should be so happy! Things are so much better now. It\u2019s a miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. But I wish I could leave this place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ezer Mizion \u2018picked up the ball\u2019 and taught him a new skill- how to use a computer by moving his eyes. He was now able to connect to the world and was often found listening to his favorite singer, Yaakov Cohen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bet you would love to have Yaakov Cohen come to visit you, wouldn\u2019t you?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be my dream!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ezer Mizion\u2019s specialty is making dreams come true. In seconds, the question appeared on the Ezer Mizion What\u2019s App, \u201cWho has a relationship with Yaakov Cohen?\u201d\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t long before a response came in. Connections were made and Yaakov Cohen, the real Yaakov Cohen, not an image on a computer monitor, walked through the hospital doors. Ayish, who is unable to speak, wrote to Cohen by computer using nothing but eye movement, \u201cI was at three of your performances. You are the greatest! I love you!\u201d After all the jokes, Yaakov kissed Moti emotionally and told him, \u201cThanks for inviting me. I love you, too!\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with the gales of laughter, Ayish\u2019s relatives dabbed at their tears. Simcha, Moti\u2019s wife said, \u201cI haven\u2019t seen him so happy since the stroke.<\/p>\n

Yonit and Debby ben-Tal, Ezer Mizion AAC Lending Center senior staff, have been invited to speak at the biennial ISAAC (International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication) international conference in Toronto, an event open to speech and communication specialists, medical\u00a0 professionals, and therapists from across the globe.<\/p>\n

As experts in the field and Ezer Mizion AAC Lending Center representatives, they will be presenting in two sessions: one will address burnout issues of therapists and caretakers in dealing with communication-challenged patients and solutions. The second session will discuss Ezer Mizion\u2019s Click2Speak development project which is collaborating with Google to promote technological innovations that will make the world more accessible for people with disabilities. Ezer Mizion was chosen by Google for its part in developing the Click2speak on-screen eye-tracking virtual keyboard that will enable people with high cognitive function and limited mobility to communicate and control their environment.<\/p>\n

Ezer Mizion\u2019s <\/em>AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication) Device Lending Center services the speech impaired, both children and adults, in Israel. <\/em><\/p>\n

To share Moti\u2019s excitement with Yaakov Cohen\u2019s visit: http:\/\/www.ynet.co.il\/articles\/0,7340,L-4832512,00.html<\/a><\/p>\n

To read more about Google\u2019s allocation for Click2Speak: http:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/google-chooses-ezer-mizion\/<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt could happen to anyone. Maybe to the person who passes your house each day on the way to work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[638,563,82,559,637,636,635,84,261],"class_list":["post-3637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-voca-speech-impaired","tag-augmentative-and-alternative-communication","tag-click2speak","tag-communication","tag-google","tag-isaac","tag-moti-ayish","tag-paralysis","tag-speech","tag-stroke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3637"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3641,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3637\/revisions\/3641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ezermizion.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}