The Military Health System Blog
Monday, October 19, 2009
This year the Computer/Electronic Accommodations Program (CAP) celebrates its 20th anniversary. Together with its 65 partnering agencies, CAP works to recruit, place, accommodate, train and retain people with disabilities and wounded service members.
One of CAP's main initiatives is to provide free assistive technologies and services to wounded service members. As such, CAP actively supports its mission of "providing real solutions for real needs" by eliminating the costs of assistive technology to our nation's heroes.
What CAP Offers
CAP provides assistive technology and accommodations to ensure people with disabilities and wounded service members have equal access to the information environment and opportunities in the Department of Defense and throughout the federal government. As a part of this process, CAP assists in the provision of individual needs assessments, focusing on the individual, the injury and accompanying limitations, and the task or job to ensure the identification of the most appropriate accommodations.
Some service members with traumatic brain injuries and closed-head injuries who struggle with memory loss and other cognitive difficulties can benefit from memory/cueing aids; personal digital assistants (PDAs) are one example. PDAs can assist service members in remembering appointments, medication schedules, and personal contact information. Some service members with cognitive limitations can benefit from literacy software, which can improve their ability to receptively and expressively process information in the electronic and telecommunications environments.
CAP also provides devices to assist service members who have sustained nerve damage, fractures, burns and amputations to their upper extremities that limit their physical access to a computer. Alternative keyboards, pointing devices, and voice-recognition software programs are examples of tools that can be appropriate accommodations for dexterity limitations.
CAP provides assistive listening devices to service members who suffer from hearing loss or tinnitus. For service members who experience vision issues due to ocular or neurological trauma, CAP offers screen magnification software, hard-copy magnification devices, or programs that provide verbal output of electronic information to accommodate partial or complete vision loss, eye strain, blurry vision, or eye fatigue.
In fiscal year 2009, CAP provided 4,518 accommodations to service members and to 10 military treatment facilities throughout the nation, including Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Brooke Army Medical Center, which houses the Army's burn center and the only level-one trauma center in the Army Medical Department.
CAP services and staff assist our wounded service members by providing tools they need to rejoin the work force, whether continuing on active duty or separating to pursue educational or employment opportunities. Service members who receive accommodations from CAP are entitled to retain these tools, at no cost, even if they should separate from active service. CAP provides a range of support services to the military family, doing so with compassion and explicitly acknowledging the dignity of service members.
Learn more about CAP at http://www.tricare.mil/CAP/
Contact the Wounded Service Member Team at WSM@tma.osd.mil
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