Interview with Richard Tapping
Richard Tapping is Vice President for Vispero, the leading global manufacturer of products and technologies that have been helping people with vision loss for over 25 years. Like many, Richard was largely unaware such products and technologies existed when he first started in this industry, but quickly realized he had a grandfather struggling with Age Related Eye Disease. Richard saw he could positively impact peoples’ lives and is dedicated to help improve the quality of life for those going through the same issues.
Gary Barg: According to the American Foundation for the Blind, there are nearly seven million Americans over the age of 65 with severe visual impairment. Richard, can you tell me some of the latest technologies available to help our loved ones with low vision maintain their independence?
Richard Tapping: I sure can. Today’s advancement incorporates a lot of the mainstream technologies that the Baby Boomer generation is beginning to adopt. Fortunately, the digital advancements in some of the products that we have now allow us to greatly improve the use of magnification.
Since the birth of the optical magnifier, they figured out how to put a bulb or illumination onto the optical magnifier, because, a big part of the issue with low vision is having sufficient lighting. And now, we’ve been able to incorporate contrast enhancements as well. So in some of the more recent products that we have today, the combination of those three important factors are housed in one device.
So, we can now scan printed material; a newspaper, mail, a medicine bottle, a cereal box, and read the text out loud.
Gary Barg: The technology behind this is astounding.
Richard Tapping
Richard Tapping: A big part of our challenge when we develop these products is to make them intuitive and accessible for the people that are using them.
We spend a great deal of effort making the controls and the interface extremely user friendly. So, we’re not replacing one problem with another. We’re actually eradicating that problem.
Gary Barg: You are a family caregiver for your grandfather with Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). What challenges do you face and what are you able to do to support him?
Richard Tapping: My grandfather is 86 years old, and as his vision began to deteriorate, he chose simply to stop engaging. He became more reliant on my grandmother for important things and basically gave up the things that he loved to do. And one of those things was to bet on the horses and read the forms in the newspaper. He stopped doing that because one of the challenges that people living with vision loss have is that they do not self-identify.
It took me a couple of attempts to introduce basic magnification skills to him, but it transformed his daily activities. He was soon able to adopt some of our electronic digital magnifiers where he could read his mail and newspapers himself.
My grandfather had been an example of someone very set in his ways and simply didn’t want to adapt. But given the right tools and assuming those tools are very intuitive and easy to use, it can be done. And he is a great example of that.
Gary Barg: That’s a great story for caregivers sitting around with their family members trying to figure out how to help their loved one who don’t self-identify, one, and two, are set in their ways.
Richard Tapping: One of my challenges with my grandfather is he lives in the UK and I don’t get there often. So, I sent back a couple of simple devices with my mom, that will magnify the text with some illumination. And the next time she went, I sent another product called the Ruby, which is a digital handheld magnifier. The Ruby offers a dramatic improvement in the field of view and contrast over the optical magnifier.
When my mother put the Ruby in front of him, she reported that his experience was completely transformed. He went from using an optical magnifier, which doesn’t have enhanced contrast to a Ruby magnifier that does everything for you.
You place the Ruby magnifier on whatever you want to read and almost by magic, the text displays on a screen with a large field of view. And we’re able to magnify the text from 2 to 14 times, as well as increase the contrast of the text that he was reading.
Gary Barg: That was brilliant.
Richard Tapping: Exactly. Now he’s just eating up the technology.
Gary Barg: One of the things I find most interesting about Vispero is the company owns so many of the leading brands in low vision support. Enhanced Vision, Freedom Scientific, Optelec. Can you tell me about the synergies that have come about by having all of these terrific brands under one roof?
Richard Tapping: The concept behind Vispero is to bring the best manufacturers in this industry together. The ones that could offer the most value and the broadest portfolio of technology in order to serve the needs of as many people as we possibly could within the vision impairment market.
So Vispero went to work at bringing together, as you say, Enhanced Vision, Freedom Scientific, and Optelec. AO Squared was another one, and those brands essentially make up almost all of the tools that are currently used if someone has a visual impairment. And we serve customers from birth and even have some that are 104 years old.
Gary Barg: So, it is one stop shopping and if your client’s vision changes, you’re able to stay with them so they get the support they need throughout the lifecycle of their vision.
Richard Tapping: Not just vision changes, but also challenges change. No one solution is going to fit everybody, which is why we have a toolbox of different tools that can adapt to the changing visual needs that somebody might have and this could be over decades.
Gary Barg: What do you see for the future of low vision technology?
Richard Tapping: There are wonderful developments out there in terms of mainstream technology. Artificial intelligence is one, machine learning is another and I think we can integrate more of that technology into the products that we have today. But do it in a manner that stays true to what we’ve always been about, which is not just creating products but also creating the user experience.
As technology changes and it will change, the aim or our goal as a company will be to take that changing technology and make it accessible for everybody.
Gary Barg: What should a caregiving family do when they’re caring for a loved one with low vision challenges?
Richard Tapping: Take advantage of the resources within the distribution network that we have around the country. And get the technology in front of the folks that you’re caring for. The easiest way to get hold of us is to visit vispero.com. On the website, there is a contact form where you can give us your details, and someone can respond to you. We can be reached directly at 727-803-8000, or you can even email us at info@vispero.com.
Gary Barg: What is the one most important piece of advice you’d like to share with family caregivers?
Richard Tapping: From my own experience, I’d say, just try something. Put something in front of your loved ones that can really transform their outlook on life and what they can do. As opposed to what they couldn’t have done yesterday without these tools.