{"id":4049,"date":"2025-01-16T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=4049"},"modified":"2024-12-06T11:06:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T10:06:04","slug":"beyond-the-fingertips-imagining-technologies-for-a-deafblind-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2025\/01\/16\/beyond-the-fingertips-imagining-technologies-for-a-deafblind-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Fingertips: Imagining Technologies for a Deafblind Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Article Summary by Raymond Holt<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This paper explores some of the challenges faced by one of the authors (Russ, who is deafblind) and imagines how future haptic technology could enhance experiences for people with deafblindness. We consider three of Russ\u2019 experiences related to his interest in space: a visit to the Kennedy Space Centre to experience the immense rockets and cramped crew capsules; two observatories to view constellations and the moons of Jupiter with his residual vision; and watching a livestream of the launch of NASA\u2019s Mars2020 mission.<\/p>\n<p>We highlight the importance of emotional experiences, the need to adapt to Russ\u2019 existing knowledge and the need for skilled assistance to make these experiences accessible. We then imagine how future technologies might enable access to emotional experience and adapt to existing knowledge when skilled assistance is not available. However, we also note the importance of social contact and the risk that replacing human assistance with technology could increase social isolation. We conclude that there is potential for haptic technologies to improve access and enrich experience for people such as Russ, but it is important that new technologies expand the range of options available, rather than just replacing those available now.<!--TrendMD v2.4.8--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article Summary by Raymond Holt This paper explores some of the challenges faced by one of the authors (Russ, who is deafblind) and imagines how future haptic technology could enhance experiences for people with deafblindness. We consider three of Russ\u2019 experiences related to his interest in space: a visit to the Kennedy Space Centre to [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/2025\/01\/16\/beyond-the-fingertips-imagining-technologies-for-a-deafblind-future\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15028,15047],"tags":[15044],"class_list":["post-4049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal-announcements","category-special-issues","tag-research"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Beyond the Fingertips: Imagining Technologies for a Deafblind Future - Medical Humanities<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today&#039;s article summary explores the challenges faced by one of the article&#039;s authors, Russ Palmer, who is deafblind, around his experiences related to his interest in space.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=4049\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beyond the Fingertips: Imagining Technologies for a Deafblind Future - Medical Humanities\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today&#039;s article summary explores the challenges faced by one of the article&#039;s authors, Russ Palmer, who is deafblind, around his experiences related to his interest in space.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/medical-humanities\/?p=4049\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Medical Humanities\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-01-16T09:00:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chris Pak\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Chris Pak\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=4049#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=4049\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Chris Pak\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/0e11c1a9a0f1f9f2aa898a719652c44c\"},\"headline\":\"Beyond the Fingertips: Imagining Technologies for a Deafblind Future\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-01-16T09:00:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=4049\"},\"wordCount\":209,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"research\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Journal Announcements\",\"Special Issues\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=4049#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=4049\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/blogs.bmj.com\\\/medical-humanities\\\/?p=4049\",\"name\":\"Beyond the Fingertips: Imagining Technologies for a Deafblind Future - 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