Help at Work II

[Matthew_]

Hi Guys,
Have just got a screen magnifier (to go over a flat screen), a desk lamp and a visikeys keyboard from the RNIB. What a difference! The magnifier is fantastic. The lamp also helps me get the lighting right at work. The result is a lot less fatigue at work and I would thoroughly recommend them. They are also easy to obtain on the RNIB website and easy to fit etc. Even our hide-bound procedure allowed the keyboard to be attached to my machine wearas disability software seems to have got the IT department wrapped around the axle! I requested the software 2 months ago and each time I phoned them they seemed to be in a state of bureaucratically induced paralysis! Suffice to say the hardware is easy and effective! I thought this might be of use for others who work in let's say less than flexible organisations!

[GarethB]

Matthew,

IT are usually the one to be a problem!

(Sorry John )

This is where you start to quote the Disability Discrimination Act and they are legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments.

[Matthew_]

Yeah, that's how I feel. Problem is the people themselves are trying but the system is so rigid. We've got ourselves into such a state with contractors that they are charging £30K to validate a piece of software!! My employer is absolutely on for the DDA and all that, more so than most. But bureacracy is sending it into complete paralysis. On the grounds that it is reasonable to supply the software and de facto they are not: there is case for effective discrimination. On the other hand, I am not sure what that is likely to achieve. If it drives the system to review itself and come up with a more efficient and flexible means of operation, this would be good, not just for me but others in similar situations. But then I could just end expending a lot of emotional energy getting nowhere. I'm not sure at the moment.

[Barney]

Matthew, I've read a lot of your posts and feel I should know, but what sort of sight problem do you have to need that sort of equipment? Is there something in the pipeline to give you better vision?

[GarethB]

Barney,

KC is now recognised as a disibility so we are coverd by the disability discrimination act.

This emans emploeyrs have to amke reasonable adjustments, but if you are new to the condition you probably do not know what it is you need.

The RNIB and Action for the Blind are two bodies that can come and do a visual assesment of your work place and help suggest what may be helpful. They also have facilities for you to try different equipment.

Then using the Access to Work scheme the equipment you then need can be subsidised by the government if you are already in a job. If you need the equipment to start a new job, then Access to Work pay for the whole lot.

In either case I think you are then obliged to stick to that job for a couple years.

All this is in theemployer handout the group has had produced, available for download from the main site

[Andrew MacLean]

Matthew

Did you get to visit RNIB at finnieston. They have a room in the Scottish Power HQ, and I had a wonderful day there playing with their toys before they sent some people round to do a "work place assessment".

I agree: they are fantastic and their help has transformed my experience.

Andrew

[Matthew_]

That's interesting, I will try that.

Barney,
The reason for getting some equipment to ease PC use is that without any lenses I can hardly read the screen. Since I am now in a staff job, I am spending a lot of time on the PC. I am getting some RGPs in a few weeks but I am thinking I am not going to be able to wear these all day, every day. So it makes sense to be able to make the PC useable without lenses.

[Barney]

Ah, I see. Hope you get on with the lenses. I'd have a job finding my way to the screen without mine but luckily they've never been a problem for me (other than that they may well have caused the KC in the first place).

[GarethB]

Barney

Much research has been done into

(other than that they may well have caused the KC in the first place).

yet the proffesionals can not I agree.

I am of the camp that says lenses as such are not a cause of KC.

My reason is that my KC developed in my teens afetr never worn glasses or lenses very quickly and with lenses it progressed at the same rate resulting in a graft in each eye. Then 18 years of just wearing glasses for the first 2 years and then the last 6 - 7 years (there was a spell where my sight was so good glasses were unnecessary) KC came back with avengance and since wearing lenses for the last 2 years the KC is remained unchanged.

Just goes to show we are all different which makes the research so hard.

[Barney]

Seems to be generally accepted in the US that the use of contact lenses can lead to KC but there seems to be a total reluctance in the UK even to consider it as one possible cause for some reason. That approach doesn't seem good science to me.

I got a car at 17 and immediately bought a pair of hard contact lenses from a place in Wigmore Street. They cost me £40 which back then in the sixties was a month's wages.

My brother also bought a pair from the same place about a year later. He lost the lens for his right eye after a couple of years and got a replacement somewhere else. For reasons of vanity, neither of us had worn glasses before then.

We both wore the lenses all day and often all night and into the next day as well - we were normal teen-age kids. Might sound surprising but I wore the same lenses for over 20 years. The old rigid non-gas permeable lenses were amazingly strong and scratch resistant. I bought at least one other pair from a place in Earls Court but my prescription never changed and the new ones were less comfortable so were never used. I've still got the original lenses bought in the 60s today and wore them until RGPs were prescribed by Moorfields.

Neither of us had any hint of KC until we were around 40. Then I developed it in both eyes and my brother developed it but only in the eye than had worn the original lens.

No-one else in our family has KC other than the two who wore contact lenses.

It certainly doesn't prove that our KC was caused by contact lenses. I think it does suggest that the view widely held in the US that lenses can cause KC shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. It's understandable that opticians who were very keen then to encourage the use of lenses when they carried a huge profit margin might be less willing to accept any link.

It's also interesting that my brother only had the problem in the eye that wore the original lens. That could suggest that the fit or some other factor in the original lenses played a part.