03 Jul 2018

Heads, fingers, knees and toes do it for Dean

Dean’s up for playing first person shooters, but isn’t able to to hold a standard games controller because of his Motor Neurone Disease.

In theory there’s a whole bunch of fantastic kit around that might help, like eye control, switches, speech control, mouth control and so on, but Frankie and Joe headed over to visit Dean in Sutton Coldfield and find out exactly what - if anything - might work best, especially as Motor Neurone Disease affects different people in different ways.  

In Dean’s case they hit on a heads, fingers, knees and toes solution that made the most of his limited movements. A lightweight chin joystick, a leg switch for walk forward, two more switches under his wheelchair joystick to aim and shoot, and a couple more on his footplates to jump and crouch. It’s given him access to most of the buttons he needs to play Call of Duty in the Local Play.

It’s only through spending time with people, trying out equipment that best suits their environment, circumstances and abilities, that we’re able to settle on an option we think will work best. And even then, we’ll lend the setup for a thorough testing period so that if anything is bought as a result, there’s a much better chance that it’s the right thing.

It’s an approach that’s given Dean a way to play again, and we’re hoping his new setup will give him back the maximum possible gaming magic!