Sir Terry Pratchett is a world renowned fantasy novelist. His most famous work would be the Discworld series which has about 40 volumes! Not to mention a massive Fandom which has led to worldwide Discworld conventions!
On average, Pratchett has
written at an incredible rate of two books a year.
However, in the winter of
2007, Terry Pratchett announced that he had been diagnosed with early on-set Alzheimer’s
Disease.
Typical Alzheimer’s disease
is most commonly associated with deterioration in memory, language, perception
and a host of other skills and abilities.
During our lives, most of us will be affected by Dementia, whether it be ourselves, a friend or family member.
During our lives, most of us will be affected by Dementia, whether it be ourselves, a friend or family member.
Pratchett has a rare form of
Alzheimer’s called Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA).
Unlike other forms of
Alzheimers, individuals with posterior cortical atrophy tend to have well
preserved memory and language, but instead show a progressive, dramatic and
relatively selective decline in vision and/or literacy skills such as spelling,
writing and arithmetic.
Pratchett has turned to
assistive technology, to help him continue with his work.
He uses speech to text software Dragon Dictate.
He uses speech to text software Dragon Dictate.
Like most assistive technology, Dragon can take
some getting used to. Speaking
unusually slowly or pausing between words will only make it more difficult for
Dragon to interpret your speech accurately.
If you imagine all the names of places and characters in the wonderful world of Terry Pratchett, they’re not likely to be in your average dictionary.
Combining Dragon with some extra assistive technology from TalkingPoint, a solution was found:
If you imagine all the names of places and characters in the wonderful world of Terry Pratchett, they’re not likely to be in your average dictionary.
Combining Dragon with some extra assistive technology from TalkingPoint, a solution was found:
“ Without a shadow of a doubt, I must be one of the toughest customers to accommodate; as an author I use a huge working vocabulary and let us say an idiosyncratic writing style" says Pratchett.
"But I did have one big advantage. We dumped all of my novels, in electronic format into the computer, which overnight absorbed my personal vocabulary into its own; don't ask me about the algorithms involved, but it can make a pretty good stab at understanding me, amazingly so, I will add, given that I have an accent like David Bellamy with his hand caught in an electric fire. Even so, with the most minimal of training, both of myself and of the machine, I was producing decent copy by the end of day one. Complex words were no problem at all; talking point loves complex words, because they are more distinctive."
Statistics from the Alzheimer's Society states that there are currently
800,000 people with dementia in the UK. And there will be over a million people
with dementia by 2021.
A year ago in October 2011, Sir Terry Pratchett become one of AbilityNet's patrons.
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