There are many Minnesotans with disabilities that want to stay home or move home.
And with the right assistive technology, they can.
Technology for Home is a program of the
Minnesota Department of Human Services, Disability Services Division, and LiveLife Therapy Solutions
that brings together teams of advanced practice professionals across disciplines.
They bring person-centered, at-home assistive technology, assessment and training to
Minnesotans of all ages who want to stay at home or move home.
This team approach has helped more than 1,000 Minnesotans define success
when they achieve their goals that were unmet in the typical assistive technology system.
Now they can reach for their dreams to stay home or move home
with the right supports, at the right time.
About half of the people using Technology for Home are children
and here are a few of their stories.
Emily is a beautiful 16-year-old girl.
She's in high school.
She is in 10th grade.
Before Technology for Home, there was no communication with Emily.
As a mother it's very painful not being able to know what your child wants or needs
or it's just very painful not to ever hear I love you or good bye or hello.
I've always been told that Emily would never be able to communicate.
She is at her baseline.
She was not going to make any more progress.
The speech therapists have always shot my ideas down
when I come back from an assistive technology conference all excited
and going to the school and talking to the therapist and they've always said no.
It's not going to happen.
She won't be able to use this technology.
When I learned about the Technology for Home program,
I started thinking about the people on my caseload and who might be able to benefit from it
and I did think of Emily and Megan right away.
Megan is a good mom and a strong advocate for her daughter
and communication has been a struggle for her life.
Just because Emily hasn't been able to use words to communicate,
that doesn't mean that she doesn't have the thoughts and feelings
and emotions that she would like to share with her family.
And not being an expert in assistive technology myself,
it's hard to keep up with all of the advancements.
The opportunity to bring in a consultant into her home
who does know what the current state of assistive technology is,
to be able to work with her and see what her needs are and make recommendations
that I was hopeful for them that they would be able to
make a connection that something might work out.
The day that Emily was able to communicate, I was visiting her at school.
I didn't know what I was going to expect.
And quite frankly neither did the staff or her mom.
We were all holding out for hope.
We set up a communication device for her that uses her eyes to operate it
and so it's a technology called Eye Gaze.
And on the screen there was a white board and on the bottom,
all the colors, very tiny colors to get to.
And we hadn't calibrated her to the device and that means
the device wasn't really prepared or learned enough about Emily's eyes for it to be perfect.
Yet she was able to get every single one of those colors
and she was determined and she did it.
So we were having a natural conversation with her.
And that was wonderful.
I went into the room right at an amazing time.
So they put up a program that was a paint program
and they told Emily to choose a color and she chose it.
And she colored with it.
Everyone in the room, was tearing up, goosebumps
because Emily, for the first time in her life, communicated.
She was able to communicate in a way that wasn't crying, body language.
She was communicating with her eyes.
It was phenomenal.
It was an absolutely amazing experience.
So after Emily showed us everything she could do, the fun did not stop there.
The teachers ran down the hall, they got her favorite things.
They ran back and we quickly took a picture of all of her favorite things
and put them on the screen.
Then, using that same technology, she was able to choose her next activity with her eyes
and didn't do so just one time or in a sequential row of activities.
She chose everything she wanted.
It was her time, her desire, and it was communication and it was beautiful.
Emily is lucky to have people like Technology for Home that realize her need
and do what they can to meet that need for her.
To go above and beyond to get her this Eye Gaze computer so she can learn communication.
As she gets older people are telling us, well, this isn't a reality.
She's not going to communicate beyond this.
And Technology for Home came in and said we were going to make this happen.
She can communicate.
So, Emily is a fighter and she's going to...she wants to tell you what's in there.
I want to hear what Emily has to say.
I would love to know her favorite color,
I would love to know what music she likes to listen to,
I want to know where she wants to go.
Does she want go to Disney World?
Does she want to...does she want to go to Europe?
She's in a wheelchair but I'll make it happen.
If that girl wants to go to Europe, we're going to go to Europe.
We're going to do it.
[Machine speaks: Faster. Faster. Slower. Slower.]
We're going to keep working on it and I just want to hear what Emily wants.
My name is Robin and Stacy is my very best friend.
We've been friends for 11 years when I first moved up here.
We found out that we both have a passion for horses
and I invited her to come over to my farm.
After a while we started barrel racing together.
We just had the best of times, became the best of friends.
She's just a wonderful, wonderful lady.
Then she woke up one day and was having seizures just out of the blue.
She went to the Staples hospital and the doctor couldn't figure nothing out
and he sent her to St. Cloud and the doctor there...
he figured out what the problem was.
It's very, very rare.
90% of the people that get it don't live through it.
But she's a strong person.
They then had to still do more surgery.
Of course then her skull had to be removed for a period of time
because there was such severe swelling in the brain.
But we then started to see her progress.
She started to have movement again and you could see that she was understanding again
and the light in her eye came back and you could see Stacy coming back again.
She was in the nursing home for quite a while and her wish was to come home
and with the assistance of Technology for Home, she was able to do that.
Technology from Home come out and assess the situation
and figured out what we needed for the house to make it work with Stacy.
We widened out a couple of doors, took the old tub out,
put in a shower...a new shower that she could wheel her chair into.
Put in a new toilet that sits a little higher so it's a little easier for her.
She got the lift put in there so it makes everything a whole lot easier.
Me and the boys would carry her up and down the steps in the wheelchair until we got that done.
Now that Stacy's home, absolutely the light is back in her eyes.
She is surrounded by the people that love her and the things that she loves dearly.
She can go out on the patio and see Jack every day.
She has Remy on her lap every moment basically.
Jill, her dog, and Oak, her dog, they are surrounded by her.
She sleeps in the bed basically right out by the front window
so she can hear the birds and the trees and she's home.
Stacy, I've asked people who love you what they hope for you.
Since coming home, you traveled to see your daughter and grandchildren in Colorado.
I asked Randy where he would like to go to next.
He wants to go fishing in Canada.
What do you think?
I want to...ahahh...ahahh...
Robin wants to get the horse trailer out and go camping in the West.
Does that sound good?
I know...ahhhhh, I know, I know...
I don't care if it's speech.
I don't care if it's sign language.
I don't care if it's a speech generating device.
There's going to be away for you to tell us everything that has happened.
We'll figure it out.
I promise because one way or another, your journey isn't over.
I know... [laughs] I know...
I am Marsha Cockrell.
I am Rachel's mother.
We live in Wabasha, Minnesota along with her grandmother, her big brother and her dad.
The doctors told me that Rachel had cerebral palsy.
We were going to do whatever it took to make sure Rachel
met her full potential regardless of what that was going to be.
So I was more than happy to bring Rachel home
and we were going to dress little dollies
and we were going to be mother and daughter playing with each other
and that was just fine with me.
It didn't matter what anybody else thought or said.
You know, I'm right here.
I can do everything she needs.
And then I realize I couldn't.
I couldn't do the things that she really needed me to do when she was at her worst state.
If she was in pain, I didn't know.
And if I did see it on her face, I couldn't possibly know what was wrong.
I could do what I thought was right.
But when you're guessing 99% of the time, it's a scary place to be.
I wasn't sure what to expect when Technology for Home came into the home for Rachel.
They were able to open doors that I had not seen open for individuals before.
They had a wide gamut of technology and thoughts about what they could do to improve her health,
to improve her communication, her interaction with other people
that I didn't know was even possible.
So I was really happy to learn
that the scope of what I knew about the technology services
was quite small compared to what's really out there.
When Technology for Home came in, they brought in a new candy corn switch,
one that I'd never saw it before
and it was to give Rachel all of these choices
and I didn't have to guess any more.
She could truly tell me I want this or I don't want this.
And one of the most beautiful things that she had ever done
when she really started using this communication device
was I had always wanted to hear Mama.
I always wanted her to just say Mama, anything, I didn't care.
I just wanted to hear Mama come out of my little girl.
And on her device, there's one section called My Family.
She went into that the first time and I was sitting there on the couch,
and there's a picture of me and she hit it and it says Momma [Mom].
And then she switched over to the next one, want, and she chose sing.
And then it did it all together: Mom, I want to sing!
And then I went we will sing anything you want from now until the sun goes down.
So this candy corn switch that they came out with, Rachel's face has to not even touch it.
It goes into the direction of it and it actually has a sound
so Rachel knows she's made contact with the switch and now she's looking okay,
it's got to do what I want to do now.
And if it doesn't do what she wants it to do, you know it.
On the device, she's telling us if she has pain.
She's telling us if she wants bubbles.
If she wants bubbles, she can also tell us I want lots of bubbles.
I want big bubbles.
She can pretty much tell us almost anything on there.
She can tell me if she wants to be in her track system,
if she wants to be in her wheelchair, if she wants to play on the floor.
There are many, many, many programs in there that she can use.
So we're actually trying to catch up with her.
So she's been going into these classrooms
and there's no telling what all she has picked up in these classrooms
just being there that we have no idea.
Right before school was out, her teacher did not think that Rachel knew colors.
And we're trying to tell her, yes, Rachel knows colors.
She is like, no, Rachel don't know colors.
And we look at Rachel and go Rachel would you please show her you know what you're doing.
And on her device, she has a yellow square and a red Square.
Alright Rachel, we want the red one.
Beep.
Five out of five.
And then she looks at her teacher and just laughs.
Like see, I knew this.
We're going to go as far as we can go
and as long as we have more technology that's coming out,
that there's people that know where it is, know how to access it, know how to teach to us.
We're going to the moon.