Abstract :
E&T looks how software can help patients with speech difficulties. Patricia Ruckoff was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) on Christmas Eve, 2009. Her daughter Melissa found JayBee on the Internet and contacted Time Is Ltd. (TIL) to try to secure the speech-generation software it had developed. The local MND Association had a system purchased for a previous patient who had recently died of MND. Patricia took delivery of the system in January 2010 and immediately tried it out, allowing JayBee to learn her communication traits. At that time, she was fully mobile, walking and climbing stairs, and her voice, although slightly slurred, was completely understandable. Her home was soon broken into, and the system was stolen. After an insurance claim was filed, she received a replacement.
