In Touch Folgen

It can be a common occurrence to hear your doctor say 'if only we'd caught this sooner'. Well, the reading department at Moorfields Eye Hospital have created a way to detect signs of one of the most common causes of blindness, all in under 30 seconds. They've done this using artificial intelligence technology and it can detect Dry Age Related Macular Degeneration, or AMD. There is currently no treatment for this condition, unlike the 'wet' form of the disorder, but it is an exciting development in AI medicine. We speak with Dr Konstantinos Balaskas about how it all works and with Cathy Yelf from the Macular Society about potential future treatment for the condition.Sport England have dedicated £1 million to get visually impaired people more active. It will be delivered through a three year campaign called See Sport Differently. It comes as new figures show that blind and partially sighted people are twice as likely to be completely inactive as people without a vision impairment, with more than half of people with a vision impairment doing less than 30 minutes of physical activity a week. Paralympics GB medal winners Chris Skelly and Libby Clegg have launched the campaign, we will be speaking with Libby about it, her sporting career and what she plans to do now she's announced her retirement.

September marks the start of the new university term. We hear from some visually impaired students who are returning to their studies. They tell us about their experiences with university life so far, and what they're expecting from this new academic year. We also hear from a former disability student advisor about what support is available for visually impaired students and from Rachel Hewett from the Vision Impairment Centre For Teaching and Research at the University of Birmingham, about all things student finance.

Audio Description has been around for over 30 years: it is filling in the silences on TV, films and the theatre so that blind and partially sighted people can follow the action easier. The current legal requirements for audio description, for all of the major broadcasters, is set at 10% but there are currently no legal requirements for on-demand streaming, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime etc. We speak with one of the Principals in Ofcom's Content Policy team, Cathy Taylor about Ofcom's plans for on-demand streaming and ask whether the requirements should be set higher than 10%.There has been a boom in people playing video games over the lockdown period, and there are plenty of visually impaired people who have been joining in on the fun. We hear about an audio only video game that is entirely accessible to blind and partially sighted players. It is rather rare for an audio only game to reach the major consoles but this one is available on the Xbox. Its called The Vale: The Shadow of the Crown. We hear a review from someone who has played it and we speak to the game's developer, Dave Evans.