IOT Based Smart Assistant System for Disabled Person

Indonesian Blind Union said that the number of blind people in Indonesia reached 3.75 million and 40% in school-age children, and this number will continue to increase each year. Blind people will need the tool to help their day to day activities. The research that has been developed still have flaws, whereas they do not provide the sound of information to the people with visual impairment about the obstacle, included no scientific method used in the research, especially about how the appliance works. This research does not only provide ‘beep’ sound when obstacles are detected, but also provides audio information through a headset to the blind people. There are three obstacles detected, they are holes, bumps, and walls, and it can help the blind people to decide whether to dodge or to step high. To support the audio output and the design processing speed of the appliance, this research uses Raspberry Pi 3 mini PC, three ultrasonic sensors that are used to detect obstruction objects upright, hole and bump, and to initialize the initial values before it detects the obstruction. Tahani fuzzy logic method used to different obstacles such as the bumps, flat surfaces, or holes so the blind people feel much safer while walking.

Objective: To analyze the causes of blindness and residual vision at the Quanzhou Blind School and provide information to help prevent childhood blindness and low vision. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study of all the students (n=126) at the Quanzhou Blind School. All students received routine ophthalmology examinations. A detailed individual-level questionnaire was administered that addressed the causes of blindness and low vision. Results: Among the 126 students, 66 had low vision, and 60 were blind. The major causes of blindness were retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) (23.3%), corneal degeneration (13.3%), optic nerve atrophy (13.3%), and congenital glaucoma (11.7%). The major causes of low vision were congenital cataract (27.3%), nystagmus (13.7%), optic nerve atrophy (10.6%), and corneal degeneration (9.1%). Conclusions: Congenital or hereditary diseases were the leading causes of vision loss at the Quanzhou Blind School. ROP was the principle cause of blindness. Most low vision cases were due to congenital cataract. Key words: blind school; low vision; pathogeny

The global expansion of visual impairment is a very sensitive subject. Living in constant uncertainty has always had a negative impact on many aspects of their lives. The digital revolution is accelerating in the fast-paced culture, and it has had a good impact on blind people's life as well. This study intends to develop a support system for those who are blind or visually impaired. People with visual impairments from the partially unsighted to the completely blind can use the image recognition and text navigation system to support and direct them via auditory commands. The tool includes the sequential operations of indoor obstacle detection and recognition. The presence of an object is identified using an ultrasonic sensor. Here, a single chip known as a Raspberry Pi is being integrated with both the text navigation device and the identification system. The Raspberry Pi operates with great accuracy and speed. An object is photographed by the navigation system's camera module, processed using the single shot detection (SSD) algorithm, and then converted to text by an optical character recognition (OCR) engine before being communicated over the speaker using the text-to-speech (TTS) converter tool. The object recognition and the text navigation system are specially designed for blind individuals to operate the tool conveniently in a solitary manner.

Blind people face the problem in daily life. They can't even walk without any aid. Many times they rely on others for help. Several technologies for the assistance of visually impaired people have been developed. Among the various technologies being utilized to assist the blind, Computer Vision-based solutions are emerging as one of the most promising options due to their affordability and accessibility. This paper proposes a system for visually impaired people. The proposed system aims to create a wearable visual aid for visually impaired people in which speech commands are accepted by the user. Its functionality addresses the identification of objects and signboards. This will help the visually impaired person to manage day-to-day activities and navigate through his/her surroundings. Raspberry Pi is used to implement artificial vision using python language on the Open CV platform.

Ocular causes of reading impairment following stroke include visual field loss, eye movement impairment and poor central vision. Non ocular causes may include cognitive errors or language impairment. The purpose of this study was to identify all patients referred with suspected visual impairment who had reported reading difficulty to establish the prevalence of ocular and non ocular causes. Prospective, multicentre, observation study with standardised referral and assessment forms across 21 sites. Visual assessment included visual acuity measurement, visual field assessment, ocular alignment, and movement and visual inattention assessment. Multicentre ethical approval and informed patient consent were obtained. A total of 915 patients were recruited, with a mean age of 69·18 years (standard deviation 14·19). Reading difficulties were reported by 177 patients (19·3%), with reading difficulty as the only symptom in 39 patients. Fifteen patients had normal visual assessment but with a diagnosis of expressive or receptive aphasia. Eight patients had alexia. One hundred and nine patients had visual field loss, 85 with eye movement abnormality, 27 with low vision and 39 patients with visual perceptual impairment. Eighty-seven patients had multiple ocular diagnoses with combined visual field, eye movement, low vision or inattention problems. All patients with visual impairment were given targeted treatment and/or advice including prisms, occlusion, refraction, low vision aids and scanning exercises. Patients complaining of reading difficulty were mostly found to have visual impairment relating to low vision, eye movement or visual field loss. A small number were found to have non ocular causes of reading difficulty. Treatment or advice was possible for all patients with visual impairment.

Visually impaired and blind people face several difficulties in their daily life. This was the primary motivation of this work as to create and assemble an object detector that can assist people with visual impairments using OpenCV and TensorFlow API on Raspberry Pi and provide an audio output for the detected objects using Espeak; Text-to-Speech Synthesizer. Single Shot Detector (SSD) model with MobileNet v2 has been employed to perform the detection with high accuracy and processing speed. The scripts are written in Python which utilizes the model to recognize the objects with boxes and provide class of the objects. The recognized image category is extracted and stored in a text file. The developed system provides aid to a visually impaired person for performing tasks independently using real-time object detection and identification technology. Developed system can successfully provide information about detected object in the form of an audio output to the visually impaired person.KeywordsRaspberry PiTensorFlowFaster-RCNNOpenCVPythonText-To-Speech Synthesizer

Introduction: Despite the plethora of sensor-based assistive technology solutions, there is still no widespread acceptance and adoption by people who are blind or have low vision (i.e., visually impaired). Many reasons prevent reducing abandonment levels with a prominent one being a lack of focus on the dimension of training, which, from our standpoint, is integral to the acceptance of assistive technologies. To prove the importance of training, we extend and validate a new version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model incorporating training as a factor. Methods: Closed- and open-ended questionnaires were given online and offline to 231 participants with visual impairments after conducting training sessions with an application for outdoor navigation by people with visual impairments developed by our research team. To assess the UTAUT extension exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation model were employed to explore the relationships between the factors. A usability and user experience qualitative analysis supplemented the previous. Results: We uncovered that no factor besides performance expectancy (standardized regression weight = 0.264, p < .001) and training (standardized regression weight = 0.538, p < .001) significantly predict behavioral intention. Furthermore, the analysis demonstrated a significant interaction ( p < .007) strengthening the positive relationship between training and behavioral intention (standardized regression weight = 0.142). The qualitative analysis showed an overall positive evaluation highlighting the application's usefulness and dependability. Discussion: An application's adoption increases if individuals who are visually impaired are properly trained and acquainted with the features in real-life scenarios and recognize the application's utility for their daily lives. Implications for Practitioners: Training plays an important role in technology acceptance. It can be leveraged to make solutions more appealing to people who are visually impaired.

BackgroundMore than half of the adults with visual impairment experience severe symptoms of fatigue, with a negative impact on daily life. Since there is no evidence-based treatment to reduce fatigue in adults with visual impairment, we developed E-nergEYEze, an eHealth intervention based on cognitive behavioral therapy and self-management tailored to the needs of visually impaired adults. The aim is to describe the study protocol of a randomized controlled trial testing E-nergEYEze.MethodsA randomized controlled trial will be conducted to investigate the cost-effectiveness and cost-utility of E-nergEYEze to reduce fatigue severity compared to care as usual from a healthcare and societal perspective. A total of 172 severely fatigued adults with visual impairment will be recruited and randomized to either the E-nergEYEze intervention plus care as usual or to care as usual only (ratio 1:1). Inclusion criteria are having a visual impairment, experiencing severe fatigue (Checklist Individual Strength – subscale Fatigue Severity: CIS-FS > 35), being 18 years or older, understanding the Dutch language, and having access to the internet. The intervention consists of one face-to-face session and a computer training followed by internet-based modules with information and assignments on coping with fatigue. During this 5-month intervention, participants will be digitally supported by a social worker. All measurements will be administered at baseline, after 6 and 12 months, and additionally, those related to cost-effectiveness at 3 and 9 months. The primary outcome is fatigue severity (CIS-FS).DiscussionSevere fatigue on top of visual impairment compromises quality of life and is associated with incremental societal costs that largely determine the economic burden of low vision or blindness. E-nergEYEze contributes to the evidence base of potentially feasible interventions to reduce the important health-related consequences of vision loss and could fulfill the gap in knowledge, skills and treatment options for low vision services.Trial registrationDutch Trial Register NTR7764. Registered on 28 May 2019.

To establish the visually impaired resource class users profile in the city of Assis - SP, to estimate the visually impaired employment percentage and to compare employment rate with age, gender, deficiency type and causing disease between two periods:1984 - 1996 and 1997 - 2009.Retrospective review of both medical and school records from visually impaired individuals attending visually impaired resource class in Assis - SP between 1984 and 2009. This time period was divided into two intervals: 1984 - 1996 (G1) and 1997 - 2009 (G2). Collected data included demographic features and diseases, type of visual impairment (blindness or low vision), education, optic aids, attendance to visually impaired resource class and employment rate. Employment rate was associated with age, gender, type of visual impairment and causing disease between both study time intervals.A total of 149 visually impaired individuals were identified - 61.07% male, 38.9% female, 82.5% white, and 17.4% non-white. Mean age was 18 years. Of the 149 visually impaired, 63.75% had low vision and 36.24% were blind. In decreasing order, the more frequent conditions leading to visual impairment were toxoplasmosis retinochoroiditis (17.40%), congenital optic atrophy (9.39%), high hyperopia (8.72%), pigmentary retinosis and high myopia (with 6.71% each) and congenital glaucoma and congenital cataract (with 6.04% each). Attendance to visually impaired resource class was good by over 50% of the patients. Of the individuals >14 years-old, 44.7% and 12.3% were regularly employed during 1984 - 1996 and 1997 - 2009 periods, respectively. Employment rate only correlated with age (individuals with higher mean age were most frequently employed) and there was not correlation with demographic characteristics, deficiency type and causing diseases.The main characteristics of the individuals attending the visually impaired resource class are: male, white, with low vision and ocular toxoplasmosis. Nearly half of the individuals older than 14 years-old (44.7%) were regularly employed up to 1996, suggesting that the joint effort of ophthalmologists and teachers helps the social inclusion of these patients. Employment rate dropped over 1997 - 2009 period, and the rate of retirees increased.

To date, approximately 12 million people over the age of 40 in the United States are visually impaired, 3 million of whom are blind. Meanwhile, many people are blinded by accidents. Guide dogs can assist blind people in their daily life. However, the cost to breed, raise, train, and match a Guiding Eyes dog with a person with vision loss is estimated to be approximately $50,000. Another weakness is that the life expectancy of a human is 73.4 years around the world and the average working life of a guide dog is around eight years. As a result, people with visual impairments need more guide dogs throughout their lives. If our design is put into use, we can reduce the cost significantly. In this paper, we are going to build a smart seeing eye dog, which is a kind of wheeled Assistive Robotics that could guide the blind people walk on the road like but perform better than a real seeing eye dog. We started this paper from four aspects. They are the structure of the mechanical dog, TensorFlow-based image recognition, ROS-based motion simulation and human-computer interaction. Because of the cost of training an assistive dog is extremely high and the dogs are all red-green color-blind, which means that they cannot recognize the traffic lights and road sign. In our paper, these problems can be solved very well. Soon, between this mechanical dog paper may help blind people to better integrate into society.

Various studies have explored the relationship between visual impairment and poverty. This study aims to enrich understanding on the relationship between poverty and visual disability in the Indonesian context. This study uses data from Wave 5 of the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), focused on individuals aged 25 and above in 2014. The method used in this study consists of descriptive analysis and logistic regression. This study found that there is no relationship between poverty and visual impairment. The empirical result shows that people who experienced visual disability tend to have a lower probability of being poor in 2014 compared to people without visual disability. Poor persons also have lower probability to be visually disabled in 2014. This finding tends to be slightly different from previous research which showed the bidirectional relationship between poverty and visual disability. This difference might be due to the indicator of visual disability used in this study. Based on the IFLS data, people with visual disability come from a non-poor family so that they were able to perform medical check up, including eye health check. The results of this study indicate that a person with visual disability is capable of performing various activities, including productive activities. They are also able to work and create income. Thus, there is the possibility that they do not experience severe visual disability

Incidence of blindness and low vision in a sample population: The Priverno Eye Study, Italy

Objective To investigate the prevalence of high myopia,the prevalence and risk factors of high myopia associated with chorioretinopathy in residents aged 60 years or over in Beixinjing community, Shanghai, China. Methods A cluster stratified random sampling method was used to screen 4153 people aged 60 and over in Beixinjing community. There were 3851participants in total with a 92.73% response rate. Participants were invited to complete a questionnaire and received a comprehensive eye examination including visual acuity, refraction, slit-lamp microscopic examination, direct ophthalmoscopy and fundus photography and so on. Spherical equivalent (SE) was used to determine the degree of refractive errors. The diagnosis of high myopic chorioretinopathy was made if SE>-6.00 D and myopic ehorioretinal atrophy lesions were presented such as posterior seleral staphyloma, lacquer cracks, Fuchs spot and myopic arc spots. The degree of visual acuity impairment was determined according to the World Health Organization (WHO) classification as low vision (the best corrected visual acuity≥0. 05, but 0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that there were significant differences in the prevalence of high myopia between people with different age, educational levels and family history (X2= 19.21,32. 08,960. 68; P<0.01). There were 29 cases of bilateral blindness, 96 cases of unilateral blindness, 104 cases of bilateral low vision and 562 cases of unilateral low vision in those participants. In 183 cases of high myopic chorioretinopathy patients, 111(60.65 %)cases had an obvious visual impairment, including 34.48% (10 cases) of bilateral blindness, 11.46% (11 cases) of unilateral blindness, 29.81% (31 cases)of bilateral low vision and 10.50% (59 cases) of unilateral low vision. Conclusions The prevalence of high myopia of residents aged ≥ 60 years in Beixinjing community, Shanghai, China is relatively high. Age, education level and family history are the most important factors affecting the occurrence of chorioretinopathy in high myopia patients. Key words: Myopia; degenerative/complications; Myopia; degenerative/epidemiology; Aged; Epidemiology

Open globe injury is a common cause for blindness. Injured eyes with no light perception (NLP) should not be enucleated before exploratory vitrectomy. Some NLP eyes may attain light perception or better vision through the vitrectomy. The decision of enucleation should be determined during exploratory vitrectomy. The timing of vitrectomy in the open globe injury still has controversy, but more surgeons agreed that vitrectomy should be performed within 2 weeks after open globe injury. The deadline of timing of vitrectomy is 4 weeks after injury. Retinectomy around the edge of the wound and retinal re-attachment surgery are the key points to prevent proliferative vitreoretinopathy resulted from the injury.

Background: Vision is the main way of incorporation among the human being and the exterior surroundings.It consults to the means to recognize the shape and particulars of the things a person sees.Objectives: 1.To assess the prevalence of visual acuity among adults of selected community areas.2. To determine the factors associated with low vision among study subjects.3. To assess the visual function among adults of selected community areas.4. To provide health education related to care of eyes using a pamphlet. Material and Methods:A 'non-experimental' (Quantitative) descriptive design was used "to assess the prevalence of visual acuity among adults (25 years and above)".The sample size was 200 adults from selected community areas.Samples were selected by convenience sampling technique.Snellen's and E-chart was used for the evaluation of the 'distance visual acuity' and near vision chart (Snellen's and E-chart) for testing 'near visual acuity'.Assessment of factors associated with low vision, by interview method.Development of self-structured visual function questions for testing of visual function by interview method.Results: Analysis revealed that out of 200 subjects 57 subjects had distance visual impairment and 44 subjects had near visual impairment.From distance visual impairment of right eye of subjects there was only one significance associated with low vision and factors associated with it that is based on present eye disorder, from distance visual impairment of left eye of subjects there was only one significance associated with low vision and factors associated with it that is based on history of brain injury and other factors have no-significance associated with low vision and the factors associated with it at level of p < 0.05 level of significance.From near visual impairment of (right eye, left eye) of subjects there were no significance associated with low vision and the factors associated with it at level of p < 0.05 level of significance.Visual function question showed that 98.5% subjects had no visual function problem, 01.5% subjects had a little problems in visual function, and 00% subjects comes under cannot do at all. Conclusion:The conclusions were drawn on the basis of findings of the research.The results show that mainstream of subjects had normal vision but less than half of subjects had visual impairment which was associated with factors of low vision.Findings highlight the need for more intensive efforts to improve visual acuity so as to reduce the morbidity factors.