TECH

New 'app' helps communication in cases of cerebral palsy

Known as Magic Contact, the application has been tested at the Association of the Cerebral Palsy Port (APPC) and is based on a technology that allows the user not only to communicate by written message but also to access the internet.This toolkit, once implemented the "Independent Living" project of APPC, can increase the degree of autonomy of the user, said to Lusa the president of FAPPC, Abilio Cunha.The developer of the Magic Contact application, Daniel Freitas, told Lusa that the application "developed from the root of thinking to users with cerebral palsy" intends to "solve the problem of how a person with severe motor limitations can interact with a screen tactile".The use of an external button linked by cable to the smartphone or the tablet simplified this relationship, opening APPC users the ability to use the main tools of the mobile phone, make a call, send a message and surf the internet, he explained. Daniel Freitas,"There are still tools to help communicate through symbols, writing," he added.Exalting the "benefits" that proximity to APPC and its users brings to the project, Daniel Freitas and Marta Samúdio, occupational therapist of the APPC Support Technologies Service team, agreed that the suggestions presented by the association go "sense of an application customization"."We have not only the population that uses this technology but we have also tested the results to try to improve the application," said the APPC official of a "work that allows to customize the application to the needs and difficulties of the user."And because "needs are changing, both in terms of the user and what is done with technology," Marta Samudio admits that "there is always something to improve", even if witnessing the success of the tool."We have customers who use it daily and are satisfied. It's an application that is free, with the possibility of personalizing itself, which works as an added value," he said.
The director of Corporate Citizenship and Inclusion of the PT Foundation, Graça Rebôcho, stressed that "solutions are developed mainly through technology" being adapted "to each type of need."Admitting that the optimization of the responses in time, in relation to the suggestions made, "can still improve," stressed the partnerships with universities, citing the example of "Magic Contact.""The idea was of a PT Foundation employee and we asked the Guarda Polytechnic Institute to develop the solution technologically," the director said.The president of the Federation of Portuguese Cerebral Palsy Associations, Abilio Cunha, explained to Lusa that the result of the partnership "the autonomies of the individual are working together".Citing the Convention on the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Abilio Cunha stressed the importance of technology to "overcome some limitations, especially in cerebral palsy, where communication is, for the most part, an obstacle to autonomy and inclusion.""People who are using these technologies enjoy an autonomy that allows them to have quality of life and to follow their path as another citizen," he said.

As an example of this, he spoke about the "Independent Living" project, which "will allow you to have a personal assistant to fill the tasks you can not perform", but that by having the application you can "also acquire other services in the community without being dependent on this human support.'' 

Lusa