 Again, thank you for allowing me to come in today. It's an honor and a pleasure. And it's scary because I feel like I'm talking into the dark. For anybody that knows me, I have retinitis pigmentosa. It's advanced stages. I have been diagnosed with Usher syndrome, so I also have hearing loss. So today, I'm going to talk about maintaining independence and what that means for our patients that come in and take the class with me and how we, as a department of patient support program and as you as providers, that we can get our patients connected into the community and utilize resources to maintain independence due to vision loss. And I'm going to say this, that losing vision can be a very traumatic experience for anybody. So the first topic that I usually cover, and it's usually the very first interest that many of our patients have is talking about transportation. How do we maintain independence if we can't get around? So I talk about UTA and paratransit. A lot of times, our patients aren't aware of the services that are available through UTA, such as contacting the mobility center and being able to have somebody there to help them navigate the buses and the trains and work on specific routes that they use regularly, such as figuring out how to get to track so they can get up here to our appointments. Another topic that I talk about is Lyft and Uber. And many of our patients aren't aware of that. Maybe there are very reasons for that. I use that service frequently. I love it. Especially when I'm stuck and UTA is not available to me. Another thing that, another option is contacting the aging services through the county, which often will provide shuttle services at a very low rate for them to get to and from their appointments, whether it's a doctor's appointment or a social services appointment, anything like that. And then, and there's other organizations out there that provide access to taxi vouchers for a discount of 60% off. So for example, you can purchase $160 worth of taxi vouchers for $64. And they're used at many of the cab services here in Salt Lake City, City Cab, Ute Cab, Yellow Cab. And they also have those services available in many other locations throughout the state. They've got them up in Park City, they have them up in Logan, Cedar City, down in St. George, and I believe they have them out in Vernal and possibly Price. And then I also introduce them to the concept of the White Cane. What is its purpose? Most of us understand that White Cane is usually used for allowing a person to use and walk around. But sometimes we don't understand that White Cane is also used for helping other people around us identify and help us that if we do something embarrassing like I do, sometimes I'll walk into the wrong restroom. I'm thankful to either have my dog or my cane with me because I don't think I want women sucking me in the eye. So it's very helpful to have these tools that identify us with vision loss. So when we ask somebody for help, then sometimes people out in the community will say, well, you don't look blind. But if anybody knows me, my response is, well, you don't look stupid. So I try to give my client or our patients here a sense of humor when it comes to dealing with situations such as these. And then also we talk about mobility instruction. Where can we go to get training for the White Cane such as the Division of Services for the Blind and Vision Impaired? And there's also other organizations they can go to. Many of the guide dog schools around the country now offer more intense two week or four week training at their schools. So another big issue that we talk about is, okay, how do we do our shopping? And so the first question is, I ask is, how do you identify your money? And I ask the patients, what works well for them? How do we do this? How do we think outside the box so that they can identify different denominations because the $1 bill or the $20 bill and the $50 bill or they're all the same size. But sometimes there's different techniques that would work for different patients such as folding the denomination in a certain way or putting it in a certain location in their wallet or their purse. And I also talk about how to safely use debit and credit cards because sometimes these machines can be very tricky because I've had a patient one time who just gives his card to the cashier, to swipe his card, but then he also verbally tells them what his PIN is and that could be pretty nerve-wracking for me. I mean, I'm not sure I wanna disclose some personal information like that. So we discuss, okay, how do we do this and still maintain independence and maybe asking people, where's the keypad? How can I identify the different numbers on the keypad so that they can enter their PIN number for themselves? And then we have everyday shopping. Sometimes we do the same thing day in and day out. So maybe you go to the same grocery store and knowing where your layout of your store and creating a shopping list for you to be able to start with, let's say, dry goods, go to the meat department, the dairy department and go into your baked goods and be able to know what's, where things are, also being able to willing to ask for assistance because many of the stores there will have customer service available so that you can go up and ask somebody to assist you for shopping and sometimes people are more comfortable taking a close friend or family and that's okay. And then I also talk about food delivery such as winter farms and the community co-op which I have discovered that with the community co-op they will deliver their foods and services for free if you are blind so the delivery charge is waived. And then we talk about organization especially in a pantry. Maybe you have one shelf in your pantry for all your soups and another for all your canned goods like for fruits or vegetables and being able to find different ways to identify those things like you putting a rubber band around one of the cans or using a Sharpie and initializing a tea on the top of the can to identify tomato soup. Otherwise you hear stories of patients who says, oh I just go in and open it up and surprise. Sometimes that doesn't work well if you're making sour cream enchiladas and you need cream of chicken soup and you open up tomato soup. That's not gonna work very well. And the other way things we talk about is organizing medications. Again, sometimes those lids are white and they can use a Sharpie again to identify their medications like they may put BP on it so they can identify that sort of blood pressure medication or in some cases the pharmacies will also have audio scripts so they can listen to their script and know what it is. So the next thing we talk about is social life and the first thing we have is contrast cards and playing cards. We do have some to, I did bring some and if Lisa would, did I hit something? You're fine, oh you're still on social life? Okay, I didn't know you brought those up. Yeah, they're here. Okay, so here we have the oversized large cards for large print for people to use. I don't know if you can see them all the way back there but I can't see them so they're useless for me. That's okay. I have rail on my card so that works for me. And then here we have the high contrast cards for people who need different contrast needs with lighting and be able to adapt with it. And then we have... We have dice too, high contrast dice, big dice. We had a patient who loved her bunco but her friends didn't want her to play with them anymore because she couldn't see the dice fast enough. And so here we got these oversized die with, you know... The tactile. They are tactile so I can actually fill them. That's kind of cool. So there are things out there that we can identify to be able to, let me get my fingers, to be able to get, you know, see and still be able to enjoy the games that they enjoy. Part of this is being able to do things differently whether it's using larger cards or using contrast cards. And one of the other things we talk about is when we go to a venue, just because we're losing vision doesn't mean that we can't go somewhere and enjoy the show. So for example, if you enjoy going to community plays, call the venue ahead of time, let them know that you're blind and they can work out seating arrangements where possibly you can sit closer to the stage where you can see better. And then also I talk about organizations that have social events going on such as the Utah Council of the Blind always has a monthly social gathering. They've done some really cool things such as going to that new place up at Leighton Hills Mall where they have the shark and the sting rays and all the fish that will do the pedicures on you and stuff and go in and pet those things. And, you know, or they have, you know, special entrance to the state fair that's coming up here in a couple of weeks. So one of the greatest things or the biggest things that some people come to is, okay, now I'm losing vision, how do I access information and technology? So we talk about low vision aids. Some of it could be such as what we talked about here with the playing cards, but there's also other things that are available out there such as maybe using a high contrast, large print keyboards for them to be able to access their computer or it might be about using magnifiers, video magnifiers and learning how to use those to best maximize whatever vision they have left. And then I talk about access seeing the library services for the blind because many of our patients like to read. And so they may not be aware of the fact that the library services for the blind will not only have just audio books, but they also have large print books of some of their favorite reading materials such as the reader's digest. So then we talk about technology with computers like I talked about the keyboard. We talk about magnification software that they can put on their computer to help magnify their computers, change the contrast and help them feel more comfortable being able to access their computer and do the things that they always have been because they're not aware that there's these technologies that are out there. Also, we talk about screen readers and I also talk about my iPhone and how that helps me and I demonstrate some of these things for them. And then we also have descriptive video which many people may not be aware of is that most DVDs and Blu-rays if you go into the language settings you put it on descriptive video. So there's a narrator in the background that would describe motion as to what the characters are doing as opposed to just sitting there and listening to the dialogue and trying to figure out what's going on. And many of the theaters here locally you can go to the box office and request a listening device for video description. And one of the things I do is I tailor the needs of the group because each group comes with different dynamics that comes with different set of patients depending on where they are in their stage of life. And I often invite guest speakers in. For example, I'll have somebody come in to speak about technology or I'll have somebody come in from the Utah Council of the Blind or some of the other organizations to talk about their knee services, what they do for the blind and what they can do for them. I talk about vocational rehabilitation because some people want to be able to maintain employment but are unsure how to do it because most employers are afraid of carrying the financial burden of maintaining someone who is blind or visually impaired with employment because those costs are pretty hefty. So vocational rehab services are available for them to help subsidize the cost of maintaining equipment for somebody who wants to maintain employment. And then there's independent living services which is very similar to voc rehab but it's more tailored for those who are not wanting to work but be able to access technology as they stay home and just maintain the life at home and however they want to. And this very last one is probably my most emotional one to talk about is our patient feedback. And here are some of the quotes that we've gotten from our patients. So thank you. I am struggling as I'm moving into this new life challenge. This has been very helpful. And so thank you. It's always amazing to see blind people function normally, whatever normal is. I can't define normal for you. I enjoyed the variety of topics covered. What stands out is all the all around support. That's not just from the patient support program but the support that the patients get from each other and from with themselves. I enjoyed Darren because he made me feel comfortable. The most important part of the group is the empathy associated with the group. If I get invited to do these classes I would get in and do it again because she enjoyed the experience. I learn not to give up. Please keep helping people. Thank you.