Phones are a Valuable Safety Tool, by Mitzi Tharin

I hear quite often that when someone starts to lose their vision they start having trouble with telephones. They tell me, or one of their family members, that they do not use the phone much, or at all, because they can not see well enough any more. The solution is just a little bit of orientation and practice.

The biggest obstacle to making a call is simply dialing the number correctly. Just like all computer keyboards have slight bumps on the F and J keys, phones always have a bump on the five key. Sometimes it’s large and sometimes it is tiny, but it’s there.

Another benefit we get from phones is a standardized key pad that always starts with the number one in the upper left corner and a zero in the middle of the bottom row. With the exception of phones that try to be a little too decorative, the key pad will always be the same. The two is always directly above the five, and the eight is always directly below. The hardest part is actually remembering the star is below the seven and the pound sign is below the nine.

Once you home in on the five, you have the whole key pad, literally at your fingertips. Here’s how: it’s simpler to dial with three fingers than it is to use only one. Place your middle finger on the marked five key. Then the finger (index) sitting just to the left is on the four key and the finger to the right (ring) is sitting six. Dial one, four and seven with your index finger. Dial two, five, eight and zero with your middle finger. Dial three, six and nine with the ring finger. It’s just up and down; there’s no getting lost.

Blind, or otherwise visually impaired people, can call their phone company, whichever one it is, ask for the special needs department, and tell them you cannot use a phone book because of a visual impairment. They’ll send you a standard form and you get it witnessed by someone known as a “competent authority” such as a doctor or a counselor in a blindness center. Send it back and you get free directory assistance with that phone carrier.

Once you are comfortable with the large key pad on a conventionally wired telephone, it is nothing to use a cell phone. I have one from Verizon that has nice key pad bumps so you can feel the numbers, plus if you would like, it will talk out loud. The speech is a handy verification to let you know you’re dialing the number correctly. It also has a very accurate voice dial function with spoken prompts as well as a talking caller ID. This is only telephone I use but there are many more like it from the various communications companies. The only challenge I have is tiny keys but there is still a small bump on the five key.

A cell phone is more than a convenience; it’s a valuable safety item. I feel safer having a cell phone with me but until something untoward happened I never even gave it a second thought. I was going home on a public van one day and they dropped me off. By the time I got out my key to put in the door I realized that I was not at my house. I panicked for a second then turned towards the street. Luckily one of the van passengers saw me waving my arms while the van was driving away, and told the driver. If that had not happened I would have been stuck at an unknown house on an unknown street not having any idea where I was. As I found out, they had dropped me four houses away, at a house with nobody home. With a cell phone I would have had several options for solving my dilema, including calling the dispatcher of the driver pulling rapidly away!

So ever since that episode I have always carried a cell phone with me just in case something like that ever happened again, then at least I know that I will be fine.