As a quadriplegic, Tony Watts can’t use his hands to control a computer mouse. Yet the 26-year-old still spends plenty of time online with his Facebook and MySpace pals.
It’s a pastime made possible by the experts at Methodist Rehab’s Adaptive Computing Lab. After assessing Watts’ abilities, they recommended a system that lets him navigate the Internet by simply sipping and puffing on a special straw attached to an input device.
“Now I can do just about anything on a computer,” says the resident of Methodist Specialty Care Center, a Flowood facility that meets the health and lifestyle needs of younger people with severe disabilities. “I can e-mail my friends and family and just surf the Web.”
