Description of graphical content is included between Description Start and Description End. Transcript Start [ Music ] [ Title: ] International O&M Online Symposium Welcome (in multiple languages0 [ Title: ] Guide Dogs and the Future of Mobility Instruction Alan Brooks: So the Future of Mobility, I want to tell you about my experiences in this business, and how we've anticipated change, what the change is going to be in the future, but I think it's still a very exciting profession for all of us. So our agenda today, first of all, I'm going to talk about me, what I've done in the mobility business, we're going to look back at the mobility world from the Guide Dog perspective and the O & M perspective, both the same thing really. How the demographics have changed in the last 50 years and how they're likely to change in the future. We're going to look at technology, what the implications of technology are for our business, the threats and opportunities that that gives us, and similarly with the medical research, the implications of medical research, and then what I believe is the professional training for the Future of The Guide Dog mobility Instruction and the O&M specialist. First of all, about me, I like talking about me, but I'm not going to spend too much time on it. I started my career in 1967 here in the UK. Like most of my contemporaries at the time, I was interested in dog training and wanted to become the best possible dog trainer I could. I didn't have much experience with disability apart from hearing impairment. My mother was hearing impaired, but I had very little experience and knowledge of visual impairment. So I started with an interest in dog, but I realized fairly quickly that the bigger task was actually training visually impaired people to use those dogs and I realized there was a lot I could learn from the O & M industry. So in '87, I trained again as an O & M instructor but retained employment with the Guide Dogs here in the UK. So in my 50 years working in this field, I worked as a practitioner, both as ‑‑ on the dog side and the O & M side, as a manager of the people doing this work. I've done some research looking at how we could help mothers with bush chairs or what you Americans call strollers, how they could work with a Guide Dog. Wheelchair users with a Guide Dog. I've been a staff trainer. I spent a long time as an assessor, I think nearly 20 years as an assessor for the international Guide Dog Federation. I've lobbied the UK and European government on access issues and environmental design issues, and I retired, I was a Director of Guide Dogs for the Blind in the UK. When I retired in 2010, I expected my career was at a close, but unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever you want to look at it, the industry wouldn't let me retire, and I continued as a lecturer, and a self‑employed consultant helping mainly Guide Dog organization, but not exclusively so throughout different parts of the world, and I've been fortunate enough to have my work take me to over 60 organizations in more than 35 countries, and that includes every continent in the world so far. So that's enough about me. But looking back, looking back in history, blind people had very few lifestyle and mobility alternatives. In the past ‑‑ in the western world, they were institutionalized. They were put into ‑‑ they were called at the time, politically incorrect now, of course, but they were called the blind asylums in many cases, people were put behind closed doors because of their visual impairment. Not everybody accepted that option of course but many people had to go into those institutions for education and for protection. Mobility was from ‑‑ in the form of sighted guide from family and friends if they were lucky. A few people self‑trained themselves with a stick and there are some interesting illustrations through a couple of publications, a brief history of dog guides by Nelson Coons has illustrations in there. Others, of course, did self‑train with a dog, but the formal professional training with a dog didn't come until really the 20th century. Many blind people were either beggars or musician, and sadfully in the past of course, people thought because somebody was visually impaired they would be a better musician. Perhaps they had to concentrate more on becoming an effective musician. I don't know. Formally trained Guide Dogs took blind people out of those institutions and into the streets from 1916, the modern Guide Dog movement started in Germany. So I think I can claim that is the truth of the matter when we look at some of the chronological aspects of our history. So, again, looking back at pom pie in 79AD, there was a wall painting of a blind man with a dog, and that is still there today in the ruins of that small city. And in 13th century China, we discovered an illustration of a Guide Dog with a blind man which I'm going to show you in a few minutes. There's a reference ‑‑ documentary reference in 1780 of the well trained dogs at the Quinze hospital in France. There's no reference to whether these dogs were trained professionally or whether they were trained by the owners themselves. The first notes on training Guide Dogs comes from Austria in 1819, Johanne Wilhelm Klein wrote about the training techniques at that time. However, as I already mentioned, it was 1916, an ophthalmologist, Dr. Stalling in Germany, of course the mustard gas was pretty horrific stuff, and a lot of young men lost their sight with the gassing in World War I. In 1916, the military started to train guide dogs for war‑blinded veterans in Germany. In fact, there is a reference somewhere about the food shortages in that war and all dogs in Germany had to be put to death other than those working for the military or guiding the blind, and that was a law at that time. In 1927, an American woman, Dorothy Harrison Eustace, who lived in Switzerland, she was a German Shepherd dog enthusiast and training dogs for the police and military. Dogs of course were running telephone lines across war zones and so on. But it wasn't too bad, because at that point they hadn't had a war for 400 years, so it wasn't too bad being a military dog in Switzerland at that particular time. Dorothy Harrison Eustace was interested in these dogs being trained for the blind in Germany, and she sent a couple of her trainers to find out what was being down and how it was being done. They came back, she wrote articles for it about the English‑speaking press, most noteably "the Saturday Evening Post," an article was published in the U.S., which led to Maurice Franks interested in a Guide Dog to take to the USA. He wrote to door any Harrison Eustace. She agreed that Maurice Franks should travel to Switzerland to train with the first dog to go into the USA, and he was trained with a dog that we commonly know as buddy, but in fact it was originally called Kiss. He didn't like that name very much, so he changed it to Buddy. In 1930, he set up the Seeing Eye in the USA originally in Nashville, but now it's in New York or New Jersey, I should say. UK, in 1931, we were a little bit behind, the first Guide Dog program founded in Wallasey, again, with help from Dorothy Harrison Eustace who loaned us the first trainers that we had. In our case the first trainer was a Russian who didn't speak English at the time. Guide Dogs then started to expand primarily in the English speaking world, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Australia in 1951. First started in Perth. Here we have an illustration from China, from the 13th century, and right in the center of the picture, you will see quite small, I'm afraid, but there's a character there with a guide dog and a stick, and that is the first reference from China for ‑‑ of guide dog, and I believe there are at least three schools in China today. So the guide dog mobility instructors or dog training enthusiasts rather than experts on blind mobility. Includes myself when I first joined 50 years ago. The shortage of good dogs and the popularity of the movement meant the most capable people with the greatest potential obtained the guide dog and there were restrictions on ‑‑ by age, by gender, all politically incorrect today of course, but at that time there were quite a lot of restrictions on how old you had to be or how young you had to be to get a guide dog, and men who were the war blinded were given preference in many cases. So having a guide dog was to join an elite within your peer group in terms of mobility. There was no long cane at this stage. The first dog, usually German shepherd dogs, rescue dogs, dogs that were offered to the organizations, often with underlying problems, the instructors of that era had to be good dog trainers to deal with the problems that these rescue dogs were giving. Even today people don't give up a good dog. They only give up a dog that is a problem, don't they? The regional guide dog instructors had to be very good at resolving problems before they could even start the guide dog program. One of the other problems of course was this was before vaccinations for many of the diseases that would kill dogs, distemper, and so on, but now of course we've got vaccinations and it must have been really frustrating for those early trainers to get a dog almost through its training and then to find it succumb to disease. That must have been heart breaking at times. Orientation of mobility. The first references we can find, Hanks Levy in the USA. You know probably as much as I do about that. In the 1940, the Valley Forge Army Hospital with Richard Hoover were put under pressure to find a form of mobility for those, again, war‑blinded veterans that didn't necessarily want a dog. It continued with the Hines Veterans Administration in the late '40s, and the long cane technique was developed. So you started in the 1940s in the USA, but in Europe, we didn't get any long cane training until the late 1960s, when Stan came over from the UK to France, I think Germany, and elsewhere. So we were much later getting long cane training, although a few war veterans from the Britain did go to the USA for training with Stan and his colleagues in the USA before that. Interestingly, in 1971, Australia embraced the program, and now it's required qualification for GDMI has to be dual qualified in both long cane and guide dog. In 1977, the world blind union encouraged more collaboration in the Guide Dog world. Up until then, we seem to have been competitors steals traders from each other, certainly Australia, New Zealand, their first trainer ‑‑ and South Africa, their first trainers all came from the UK, and there was a little bit of anxiety that good quality staff are going to be lost overseas; however, the World Blind Union exchanged information about training, techniques and so. It took until 189 until the international Guide Dog federation was formed and set guidelines for the Guide Dog industry. I believe now there are well over 80 members from different countries in the International Guide Dog Federation. In 2005, those initial guidelines were strengthened to become standards, and those standards have been modified and adjusted and developed over the years, and in 2010, those standards became mandatory for Guide Dog Mobility Instructor training. Not mandatory for the industry, but that is perhaps a step for the future. In 1920, only 6% of the UK population were over retirement age. In 2006, I apologize that some of my dates are out of date, because it's much easier to get this stage when you're a member of a big organization. Now I'm retired. I don't have access to the same information. But in 2006, 16% of the UK population are over retirement age, and that is still increasing. So I suspect it's 18 or 20% by now, and that will be similar in the USA, Canada, and the developed world. Again, in 2006, 28% of the UK Guide Dog clients have additional health or disabilities that affect mobility or training. So the demographics are changing from those young war‑blinded veterans who were otherwise fit and healthy, and could walk at a brisk pace for hours on end. Even those war‑blinded veterans now are in their late 80s and 90s. The other thing that has happened of course is that children born blind today, although there are less in number, because the medical profession are overcoming a lot of the earlier problems that we used to have, the sad thing is that more of them have additional disabilities or health issues over and above their blindness. So we've got increasing problems to deal with as we deal with young people. Excuse me. Here is a little graphic from 2006, where you can see 65‑plus. There's a massive number of the blind population are in that bracket, and hardly any at the naught to four years old. Visual impairments, you know just as well as I do, it is a matter of aging and blindness go together. Electronic mobility devices. It's interesting to me that in the 1960s, when I started my career, there was a rumor going around that the guide dog would become obsolete because the Japanese had invented a robotic dog called a MEL dog. It was going to make the guide dog redundant, and here we are 50 years later, the MEL dog, nobody has heard of it. It wasn't practical, it followed the coaxial cable laid under the pavement, which would have been fine if you're going to go to the roots of the coaxial cable was laid and nobody put an obstacle in front of them. But the MEL dog never happened, at the time people were claiming that the guide dog would be redundant because of that. Anyway. Electronic mobility devices. The initial classification was as a primary or secondary device. The primary obviously that is used on its own, without any other additional devices, and then the secondary device which would be used with a cane, a dog or a sighted guide. In '96, there was a reclassification that the devices Type I, single output go/no go. It told you if there was an obstacle there or wasn't an obstacle there, and through one single output you may have been. Ultrasonic, lasers, whatever. And there was a multiple output go/no go, so the multiple output would have protected you over a greater width or greater height or both. But, again, it was an obstacle there, go or don't go. It may not have given you information about distance. The type 3 device offered qualitative information including distance, finding gaps and so on, and then the type IV device with artificial intelligence. It's becoming very, very complicated. And there are people that argue that the basic classification as primary or secondary device should be returned to. Others may disagree. I think that probably depends on whether you are keen on electronic mobility aids or not. Existing and emerging technology, we know about the laser cane. It's been around quite a few years. I don't think it's in significant use worldwide. There are people that use the laser cane. There are various devices using ultrasonics and they seem to have increased in popularity more recently, especially as has been greater use of ultrasonics in vehicle manufacturing. GPS of course, there are very good GPS systems within your mobile home. There are special systems developed especially for visually impaired people, and that has become very helpful out of doors. When they first came out, they were only accurate to 25 meters which was not very helpful to us, but they're much more accurate today. GPS ‑‑ in your mobile phone I think has helped a lot of people. Not just visually impaired people. I think the mobile phone has helped in other ways. It's quite normal. There's no stigma attached to seeing somebody use a mobile phone on the street, so it's not a specialist kit for visually impaired people. And my daughter, who works in mental health, says the mobile phone has helped mental health an awful lot because there's now no more stigma to talking to yourself walking down the street either. So mobile phones and GPS is very good, but only works outdoors. Didn't work indoors. What does work indoors are radio beacons, RFID, radio frequency identifications. They're being used more and more especially in transport interchanges, bus stations, railway stations, London Underground and so on, and I'll come back to some information on those shortly. There's also global information systems, which is not so much a mobility device, but it's a useful evaluation device to identify how effective your mobility training has been, and again, I will be coming back to those shortly. In 2006, I was involved in a technology testing and evaluation process in the UK. We wanted to find out why the technology is not in greater use, because we felt it was underutilized. We wanted to look at the quality of the devices that were available at that time. We tested the feasibility of developing and ongoing testing service, so should someone like Guide Dogs in the UK have a testing service to test new devices as they come out and evaluate them? And how would we introduce these devices into mainstream mobility? And that was back in 2002, I see. So nothing much has developed since then, I'm afraid, but I'll continue with that. What we did find was that the devices fell into three clear categories for evaluation, and that was basically your own device, device that somebody else put in, and GPS. What we did find, and looking at the RFID beacons, it's still the same today, we needed better information for both the end user and the training providers. That is a professional providing the training or the manufacturers of this kit providing the training. There was little training available for either the end user or the training providers. The manufacturers of these pieces of kit just wanted to send it out and sell it. They didn't really want to engage with the end user or the training professionals. The RFID kit, the installation of the beacons was put where it suited the engineer, not where it was needed to go for use by the end user, and the programming ‑‑ in other words, the information that it gave out was what the engineer put into there, which, again, was not necessarily useful to the end user, and one of the things that we need to do as professionals is get involved with the manufacturers of this kit to make sure, (a), the information they give to the client is the correct information, not the information that the salesman wants to give them. (b), the training that the client gets is professional training that we should be providing, and (c), the information that the beacons provide is information that is useful to the user rather than what the engineer thinks they should be getting. So currently, most technological obstacle detection devices are produced in a cottage industry system, not large scale manufacturing. That is changing with the use of mobile phone. So the mobile phone is becoming more useful, because we've got the device, and we just provide an application for it. Training for clients has not been universally addressed by the mobility professionals, as I just explained, the manufacturers want to sell the product, they're not involved in providing, or they don't seem to want to be involved in training. And we should be doing that anyway. And the training offered by manufacturers is neglected, as I just said, in favor of marketing. Categorization of the devices is obstacle detection and negotiation devices. The laser cane, the ultrasonics, then there's navigation devices such as GPS, RFID, and then landmark devices which again could be RFID providing a landmark that doesn't otherwise exist. So that's another alternative of classification. What we know is the options for obstacle detection devices, ultrasonics or lasers, they can be in spectacles, or head mounted, on a cane, hand held or wheelchair or walking frame system. Arguments about the method of feedback, should it be audible feedback, which we ‑‑ musical tones, direct, ultrasonic tones, as we know, many visually impaired people dislike that because it masks their normal hearing, masks their ambient sound. And of course tactile feedback through vibration, it's more subtle, doesn't affect anyone else on the street, only you feel that, but if is it detailed enough for what we're trying to achieve? There's also one other point. Sometimes the engineers producing these devices try to give the visually impaired person a tactile or an audible picture of the world around them. When in actual fact, they only want to know what within 8, 10 meters ahead of them so they can plan their route in that respect. So again, a lot of assumptions by engineers on what vision impaired people want. Perhaps we, as professionals, need to get involved with the engineers and get visually impaired people involved with the engineers to identify exactly what is wanted, which may not be what the engineer thinks is needed. Sometimes low tech can be better than high tech. Here we have a rolling walking frame, on the left. Very low tech, but effective. And on the right, we have a kit that has ultrasonics, it's got artificial intelligence. It has its uses in the residential care home where there's people with visual impairment and dementia. The device on the right can be programmed to take someone from their room to the dining room for example. It could find a route for them. But it's very heavy, and it will only work in a residential care home that doesn't have any steps, because it doesn't go down steps, I'm afraid. So high tech and low tech. Sometimes low tech can be more effective than high tech. Keep it simple. Navigation devices, lots of GPS systems on the market now, developing, includes some pre‑planning and computer systems. They're growing all the time. I'm already out of touch with what's current at the moment, so I'm sure some of you guys will be more up‑to‑date than I am. Technology, navigation devices, creates a considerable interest amongst potential user, whether cane dog or dog users, they're interested in technology that can help improve their mobility, particularly the younger people. But sometimes, performance is mixed with problems of accuracy of message, location of pedestrians which have already mentioned in terms of the engineers program in the beacons. Sometimes performance is mixed if it conflicts with ambient sound or the work of your dog or the technique of your cane. Some of those problems can be overcome by accurate training which is where we should get involved. The RFID beacons, I think this is something that is going to grow and improve. I think that is ‑‑ we've already see improvements, but it uses small unique frequency transmitter, the app in your phone will hear that frequency, and you can actually put your own landmark in on the app. The beacons can have up to four years battery life, maybe even longer, consider hidden in brick, wood, concrete, doesn't have to be obvious which would leave it open to vandalism. It can travel for up to 80 yards in ideal circumstances, but as I've already explained, many blind people don't an audible or a alternative view of the world. They need to know what is going to be in front of them. So we can reduce the output of those beacons to a much smaller distance. And the receiver I put here could be a mobile phone with the correct app. It frequently is the phone with the correct app. And the radio transmission is interpreted by the app on the phone, and we can put our own information in there. I see RFIDs being used in bus shelters, railway stations. Maybe even the restaurant that puts one in to tell you what the menu is, but because it's emitting a radio frequency, you can actually use that to add your own information for your client whether they got to carry on the next junction or whatever you want to tell them. Because RFID beacons are being used in the environment anyway, there is a potential for these to be used in urban environments by the majority of people. If you've already got a phone, you don't have to purchase anything except the app. It requires little or no training, if people are used to using that phone and the app on the phone; however, the quality of installation is often inadequate. It's not in the right place for us. And sometimes if an engineer puts a message in there, it's not the right message for our client group. What we found in that research was there's a strong desire for more and better information on the electronic travel edge for users and professionals. There's little provision for training for either the end user or us as professionals. Poor installation of landmark devices severely impacts on their effectiveness. And sometimes, when products are promoted, without training, it creates false expectations leading to disillusion amongst the end user and professionals. The number of time I've seen new electronic training aids advertised in the specialist press, second hand because somebody has got one and been disappointed with the outcome, then trying to sell what has been a very expensive aid which could have been better used if there had been training available. The end result is both the end user and us as professionals revert to the tried and tested mobility practices, which are good, but we also need to be making better use of technology. So, the manufacturers need to add training from professional specialists to the marketing aspect of their products. Inclusive design and in an aging population will increase the market for these products, and the inclusive design is working in terms of a lot of new mobility aids and travel aids are being incorporated into the mobile phone. The increasing market size that I'm talking about, particularly about the guidance systems, people with dementia, with Alzheimer's, they can ‑‑ make use of this device too. We can teach people how to get to their regular routes by using the app on the phone to teach them how to get to and from their normal destinations. I can see there's some questions coming up, and I hope to deal with those at the end. We, as a profession, need to get some continued professional development training for ourselves in the UTSA of these new devices. Should that come from the manufacturers or from the training agencies that trained us in the first place? That's a question that might change from one country to another. And we need to demonstrate to the manufacturers and the engineers the benefits of programming the devices accurately, giving the right information at the right time, for our clients' need. And we perhaps need to reclassify electronic travel aids in line with our findings, so I'm suggesting we need to do some more research in this area. I've got to show you this little picture here, very proud of this picture. Back in 2005, along with my buddy, Dr. Bill Penrod, we were in Africa, and I got the dog guide organization to host a training. And although we understood that not many people in Africa, in rural Africa in particular, would be able to afford to buy this cane, we hosted a training course for people from all over sub Saharan Africa, you can see lots of smiling faces there. We put them through a training. These people didn't do the three year O & M training course, and got a Master's degree under very rare circumstances did they. These people came for the training with this cane, and it so motivated them that somebody was prepared to invest in their training with a piece of technology that they knew they would probably very rarely use, but they were motivated to come together and have this training. We had an absolutely wonderful time, and I would encourage any of you, if you ever get the chance to work overseas, particularly in undeveloped countries, you will be yourself motivated by the enthusiasm these people show. In fact, one of the ladies who came out in very high Stilleto heels each day working on pretty unstable pavements with loose paving, she was ‑‑ I was fearful she was going to break her ankle at some point, and I said to her "why don't you wear some trainer, some flat shoes? You will be much more comfortable working with this cane on the pavement in flat shoes rather than your high heel Stilletos." And she said, "you people have come all the way from overseas to teach me how to improve my professional skills with the ultra cane, the least I can do is dress my best when we're working together." So that's the highlight of my ‑‑ one of the highlights of my career. I shared it with you to say what wonderful people we have to work with. And I encourage all of you, if you get the chance to work abroad, please go. You will be reinvigorated. Okay. Global information systems. This is not a mobility aid, but it's how you can measure the success rates of your mobility training. It's a system where the client wears a piece of equipment. It records their trouble times ‑‑ let's move on to the next slide. I can perhaps explain it more as we go along. So the client carries global information systems monitor prior to training with the cane or with the dog. Their routes and their journey times are recorded, all we have to do is carry this piece of kit and take it with them, switch it on, and take it with them. Obviously, they don't have to put it on every time they go. There are places they are going they want to keep confidential and discreet. The delays, the stoppages will be recorded. The use of transport will be recorded. It's a simple piece of kit fastened around your neck. So here we have got an illustration where we start from home, the first bit is walking, so it's easy to identify from the speed of travel that this person is walking, and the green section, and then across the bottom of the page there, we'll see a blue line interspersed with green. And when it's green, it's only moving slowly or static. That's where the bus stops are, and then up on the left hand side of the page, there's a rail line, and then, again, at the top of the page, coming into the geostats HQ, we have the walking again, though you can imagine if you did this with someone before they had mobility training, you would know how often they were going out, how long the journey took them, how many times they had to stop to resolve a problem, and then, if you did it again, several months after they had completed training, cane or dog, you would then be able to see how their mobility ‑‑ well, hopefully, how their mobility had improved, how they were covering the journey more efficiently, faster, less stoppages, more confidence, and then you would be able to show the funders of the mobility how this has improved. It's an actual measurement of your performance as a professional through your client and how you've made a change, an improvement to your client's mobility. It's quite expensive, I think, to get GIS to do this for you, but I think it might be worth doing in circumstances where there is a doubt over funding for your service. Now, so the same measurements would occur using this system as would occur pre‑training. You can compare the frequency of travel before and after training, the speed of travel, and compare the number of stoppages which of course is the efficiency. I think I better get a move on. I'm going through this quite slowly. The next thing that I don't think we've made enough use of, and I don't know if any of you guys are using it, but Google images, particularly in places like the USAA, and Australia, where we've got massive geographical areas, you can't be everywhere at the same time. Google images now, could we use this image for instance in order to plan for a client to cross this junction? How would you ‑‑ do we have to actually go and see the junction, or could we use this? And this is a question really I'm asking. Is it something we should be doing more often? Would we do it if it was part of our training as professionals. Here we have a junction at the center of the screen, but look down to the left hand side, there is also a foot bridge there, so if we zoom in a little bit closer, this is technology that is available now, and I'm asking are we using it? So the foot bridge is at the bottom edge of the page, we're getting closer and closer still, so could you use this to teach a client how to cross this junction without having to necessarily physically go to the location? I'm just going to go back a little bit there, and there again at the bottom left hand corner of the page, you will see there's a foot bridge. So if they were crossing that particular road, you would probably advise them to use the foot bridge. Okay. So it's not something I'm using, but it may be something that we could use as a profession. So what do we need to make Google images work for us? Obviously, the image needs to be up‑to‑date and accurate. We need to evaluate the Google images, or that junction, by mobility professionals. Do we need it linked into Google Earth? Again, I don't know enough. But I can't help thinking we should be using this facility more. But should our training agencies be training new people coming into the profession to use it should they be running continued professional development courses to use Google Earth? There is some work ‑‑ there was some work being done on the inertia guidance by the University of Stuttgart, I don't know enough about it, but it seems to be used inside buildings, using motion sensors linked to the electronic plan of the building. New buildings, I think we can get electronic plans of. Some old buildings won't be. It's not reliance on GPS, can't be, because it's working indoors. It downloads information on the building from websites where we've got an electronic plan. The challenge is to make it small enough, cheap enough, and easy enough to use. Again, it's something I think that we, as professionals, ought to be looking at to see if it's something we can make use of. Now, medical implications. Restoration of sight. There's retinal implants, something that are talked about quite frequently, and of course the stem cell surgery that is now being used to restore sight. A brief look at that. Now, started off ‑‑ I'm jumping ahead. So there are some problems in terms of sight restoration where there's early sight loss and late repair. So if somebody lost their sight in infancy, and then they've regained their sight, as a mature adult, sometimes the visual cognition of the brain hasn't developed to interpret that new information. And there are now a few people who have had sight restored through usually stem cell surgery, not exclusively, but what trainings available for them post restoration? What training is available for us to understand how to utilize the new vision? And sadly, there have been a few cases in Britain that I'm aware of, where people have had sight restored as mature adults having lost sight as children, and because either the restoration of sight hasn't met their expectations or they find the UTSA of vision so stressful, there have been a few cases of suicide, I'm sad to say. So what can we do as a profession to get people to make better use of their new vision in whatever form it happens to be? I don't know the answers. I'm posing the question. For those of you who don't know, there's a very good book called "Crashing through ‑‑ the man who dared to see." There's the details. It's the story of Mike May. Many of you will know Mike May. And it's his story about restoration sight, and Mike is somebody I've known for many years, he's very capability with his mobility, and he still using a seeing eye dog. I do warn you that the author, Robert Kurson, in my view, made some assumptions about vision impairment in that book. It's not entirely Mike's work. Retinal implants. Here is an I will straight of one you can see on the coin on the left, it's a tiny implant, and there's a couple of modifications from there. You'll see from this chart, as I mentioned earlier about the threat to the guide dog, the Japanese MEL dog that never came to fruition, we can go back to the bottom right corner there, and Brindley was put in retinal implants in 1955 and I think we're still a long way from restoring sight through retinal implants. There's still some very, very courageous people who are prepared to have these implants put in their eyes and let's hope that some day we do succeed, but as you can see, there's been lots of opportunity, or lots of attempts to restore sight by putting the retinal implants, different levels in the retina, with, as I say, limited success so far. But, again, if somebody gets some vision back, can we help them to make use of that vision? That of course is our role. So training for the future as mobility professionals. We need to understand all the professional disciplines. I think there is still a divide between the guide dog profession and the O & M profession and there shouldn't be. We should know enough about each other's work to be supportive of each other and make referrals to each other. Sadly, the Guide Dog Mobility Instructor is in many cases considered a skilled dog trainer, not a skilled mobility professional, and I would like to see the ‑‑ that misunderstanding corrected and I would like to see more of us qualified as indeed all GDMIs in Australia are now. They're leading us in the right direction. I think I would like to see more collaborative training for both branches of the profession. I do know that some O & M programs in the U.S. visit the Guide Dog programs, the seeing eye leader dogs and so on, and I encourage that, but I think perhaps there should be more of that. You, as professionals, should be referring your clients to the best mobility aid whether that is a guide dog, or a cane. I would like to see professionals involved in the relevant research and development, whether that is, again, the use of restored vision, whether it's electronic travel aids, whether it's developing Guide Dog skills to assess somebody in a wheelchair, or mothers with a push chair/stroller. And I would like to see some of us receiving project management training because some of the research we've got to continue doing is project‑based and some of us should be involved in that. So what are the range of skills required? Well, for the GDMI, we still need the dog training skills where appropriate. I do think we're not as good a dog trainer as some times the public think we are, because most of us in well developed guide dog programs are now dealing with a very small range of dogs. We're not having to solve the problems, we're not dealing with dogs with aggression problems. We're selecting breeding and puppy walking dogs so that they're the right quality of dog for training, so our dog range ‑‑ range of dog skills is diminishing, although our problems of dealing with more environmental issues, additional technology and so on, they're increasing problems, so the profession is changing from being a good dog trainer to being a good mobility professional that happens to use dogs. We need to have greater knowledge of the psychological implications of blindness, because as well as people with restored sight through stem cell or retinal implants, we have also got people coming back from these terrible wars where the military are being damaged by improvised explosive devices, and although they've got protective equipment and helmets now that are much better than they used to be, I understand there are some people coming back who appear to have normal vision, but they can no longer read. They've suffered some brain damage that has affected their reading ability. And of course, being able to read is part of being mobile. So we need to know how do we deal with these people? Is it something for our profession to deal with rather than the medics? We need to understand more the function of electronic travel aids and we need to be moved more in the development of those ETAs for our clients, and GPS, global information systems, similar technology. We need to be involved earlier and investigate how this technology can help our profession and ultimately our client group. So we're coming to the end. I'd like to thank Dr. Bruce Blasch who has provided some of the slides and some of the information for this presentation. Dr. Bill Penrod, again, who has assisted me particularly with the electronic mobility aids. Professor Peter Barker an expert on environmental design, and of course Guide Dogs who have helped me with ‑‑ for 43 years of my career. And thank you for not falling asleep. If any of you want to make a note of my e‑mail address at the bottom of the page there. Any questions that we don't get answered here, you can contact me through the e‑mail and I'll be more than happy to respond to you. [ Title: ] International O&M Online Symposium Thank you [ Music ] Fade to black.