My Assistive Technology for my painful hands

Dragon annoys  me sometimes, so I usually end up using other "assistive technology" devices. The mouse is the worst for me. I have used two different foot mouses (feet mice?? :). The first one had two large click pedals. The pedals were close together and stiff, so it was hard to use.


Foot Mouse

Then I bought a large slipper type foot mouse, like a giant mouse for the foot, with a large mouse pad, and a separate piece for clicking the buttons. I really like this one, but it doesn't work well with  my new computer. Here is the one I like. I bought it on ebay for much cheaper than the list price:

http://www.bilila.com/foot_mouse_slipper_mouse

Head Mouse

I started using all these about 5 years ago. I've since gotten better, but want to start using them again.

 
                                                               Here is the first model I used.

That was a joke. We made a fake one to spoof my husband's boss. He almost bought it!!



In addition to the foot mouse, I use a head mouse. I have the Smartnav 3. It was expensive, so I asked for it for Christmas.

http://www.naturalpoint.com/smartnav/products/3-at/
You can probably buy the 3 on ebay for way cheaper now.

Here is the Smartnav 4 head mouse, just to see how it's used.
The hat has a reflective strip at the front, you can also stick extra strips onto anything else, like your forehead, earlobe, etc.


Initially I used the head mouse, with a voice  software. Dragon was too slow. Then I used just the voice clicking part. It makes a giant grid with numbers then you say "click 36" to click on that area.

I will say that even with all this, it was slow and frustrating. I usually ended up using my mouse and keyboard.


Trackball Mouse

So, now that I'm better, I limit my typing and computer use to at most 2 hours per day. Best is 1 hour. I use a special mouse that has a giant ball in the middle. A friend lent it to me.




I know this is a lot of information, I just wanted to throw out the other options to make it mouse free.