My sometime-collaborator Reaves has, as I believe I have mentioned, Parkinson's Disease. He's had it for more than a decade, and after a couple of brain surgeries, is still around. It has slowed him down, and one of the more unfortunate side-effects is that it has mostly robbed him of his voice. He can form the words. He has a roof-of-the-mouth appliance that looks kind of like an orthodontic retainer that helps, but he doesn't have the air for volume. Much of the time, his voice is less than a whisper.
So he's looking around for things that will help, and found that the devices cancer patients who have had vocal cords removed, or laryngotomies might work. These voice prosthetics create vibrations that allow a kind of robotic voice. Not something you'd choose if you had a better option, but certainly preferable to not being able to speak at all.
One company he found, Louder, the ElectroLarynx Company, has a slogan that both he and I found passing hilarious -- and they even trademarked it:
"We have ways of making you talk™ ..."
You have to love guys with a sense of humor like that.
That is awesome. I have been known to go out of my way to do business with companies like that just because I wish there were more of them.
ReplyDeleteI'll just have to think of a use for an ElectroLarynx... hm...