Brett Devoo has been unable to see since he was 16, and he takes prescribed medication every single day.
High-tech glasses are supposed to help him find the right bottle. But they are not always working.
“I’m kind of always finding that I have found my own way of making things accessible. When it came to different kinds of bottles of different pills, I used them like different kinds of tape. It’s a hockey tape like stick tape, the kind of fabric stuff,” he tells CityNews.
Fifteen-year-old Elvin Nguyen has a friend with the same medication challenge.
“I saw one of the things he was struggling with most was medication adherence following his like disorder, so he wasn’t able to really see the labels well,” Nguyen said.
More than 70 per cent of Canadians with vision loss take prescribed medications on a weekly basis, and there are many digital ways to identify medications, even from your phone.
“Having these kinds of technologies will definitely be very helpful in guaranteeing independence,” said Tommy Leung, spokesperson at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind.
At pharmacies, however, options can be limited.
“Honestly, it’s not accessible at all,” Devoo said.
“They’ll give it to you in a bag. ‘Here you go.’ Like, obviously, if you ask, ‘what is this and which one is which?’ They’ll be like, ‘This bottle is this and this bottle is this.’ Thanks, but they’re shaped the same.”
20 per cent of Vancouver pharmacies offer talking labels through a system called ‘Script Talk’ that says label information when placed on a physical reader.
Readers are free if you have vision loss. But awareness of the resource remains an issue.
As of 2020, ‘Script Talk’ users account for only two per cent of prescription-taking individuals in Canada, and many have never heard of it.
For the Science Fair Foundations Youth Innovation Showcase, Nguyen made something no Vancouver pharmacy is offering right now: 3D printed labels in Braille.
“As you can see here, I just plugged in a bunch of words like ‘Hi CityNews’ as an example, and it would convert it into Braille,” he explained.
Once a bottle is labeled in Braille, no other device is required, which Alvin hopes will make it accessible to anyone, anywhere, not just those with access to phones or high-tech devices.
Learning Braille promotes independence. Do you want to take your phone every time you want to take a medication, or do you just want to drag your fingers across and take the medication?” Nguyen said.
When it comes to accessibility, Devoo has always done things for himself.
With Nguyen’s invention, he’ll be able to keep doing just that the next time his high-tech glasses don’t work.