block radiation from the monitor?

[JackMDS]

I would find what is the safest distance.

If it is few feet, then get a Good LCD monitor that in a size that is workable from this distance. From 4-5 feet away a 26" LCD monitor is workable, and you can manipulate the size of the fonts and icons with windows settings to make it bigger than the default if needed.

Connect the monitor to the Laptop's Video Out port, and disable the laptop's native screen (F- something) so there is no need for KVM or the like.

Good luck, and happy holidays to your Mom.

 

[Littlefoot99]

She has to be able to use this in hre recliner, hence the reason for the laptop. Her recliner is a power lift chair. Due to the deterioration in her muscles from the disease she has issues getting out of the other chairs.

They make a PC cart that is made for the situation your Mother is in

I will see if I can get the info on it: Its on wheels, Very light and easy to push. When she is in the chair there is a cable to pull the cart to where she is located: Put the larger LCD monitor on it - The laptop will be on but lid closed - There is a small plastic panel that sits next to her chair that swings in or away and this will have the keyboard and mouse on it. Its balanced so it doesnt flip over or anything. Also this may take care of the monitor situation and possibly trying to fight having a laptop on her lap..

Ile look the info up and put it in here as soon as I get a name on it..

 

[Littlefoot99]

In fact if the monitor of any type is the issue: There is a LED projector good for 20,000 hours for $250.00 at best buy. This may take all the troubles away. Also this is good from 6" to 60" viewable.. It weighs less than 10 ounces.. Has very high reviews..

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Optoma+-...9159206&st=led projector

 

[Modelworks]

If the laptop display is using a fluorescent based light then it will produce UV rays. Fluorescent light is UV by nature, that is how it makes light, the UV rays excite the coating which makes it glow. For most people it isn't a concern but in your mothers case it could cause problems.

You could switch to a laptop that has LED backlighting that will have less UV but not eliminate it completely. All LED that produce white light also produce UV and infrared, just not a lot of it.

I would use a UV blocking film. The same stuff is used in camera lens to block UV. If one layer wasn't enough you could add another since it is very thin and clear.

http://www.edmundoptics.com/onlinecatalog/displayproduct.cfm?productid=1873


This is what the spectrum looks like for a LCD display.

Notice the peak at around 450nm before that is UV light, IR is around the 800nm + range and really isn't bad.

 

[Maxspeed996]

You can block all of the radiation coming from a monitor with a 1" thick lead plate.

..

 

[ussfletcher]

Doesn't plain old glass block IR? Place a glass pane in front of the monitor.

Honestly though it seems that its psycho-symptomatic, she thinks she will react to her laptop and simply does.

 

[Fayd]

It's certainly not in her head, otherwise she wouldn't be sensitive to sunlight. There has to be a connection between the monitor (which she claims makes her face feel warm after about 30 minutes on it) and sunlight.

As for her condition: https://health.google.com/health/ref/Dermatomyositis

From Wikipedia:

then as i said, conservation glass will block UV light but still allow 90%~ of visible light to pass through, effectively sunglasses for your monitor that dont darken.

 

[pmv]

As nobody here really knows much about medical stuff, could you not simply ask your doctor about it? I know some medication does indeed make you photo-sensitive and my uninformed guess would be that the UV was the most significant factor in that, but I have no idea really. If you knew which part of the spectrum was the problem it would surely help with deciding a solution? The previous poster's suggestion of UV filtering film seems like a promising idea, but it kind of depends if its UV that is the problem.

Is it any different with a CRT? Could you plug a CRT into the laptop? Because CRT's I think don't give off so much UV, they radiate in other parts of the spectrum instead.

 

[heymrdj]

Doesn't plain old glass block IR? Place a glass pane in front of the monitor.

Honestly though it seems that its psycho-symptomatic, she thinks she will react to her laptop and simply does.

This symptom was one of her first. Before she was diagnosed we noticed that sitting in front of a computer monitor, or close to a tv screen, seh would get bright red on most of her exposed skin (ie arms, neck, chest, and head). Her skin would start to burn and itch, even moving away from the monitor from an hour. She thought it was hot in the room, but even keeping the room a frigid 65 degrees did no good.

then as i said, conservation glass will block UV light but still allow 90%~ of visible light to pass through, effectively sunglasses for your monitor that dont darken.

I think for now this is the route I'll have to look into.

As nobody here really knows much about medical stuff, could you not simply ask your doctor about it? I know some medication does indeed make you photo-sensitive and my uninformed guess would be that the UV was the most significant factor in that, but I have no idea really. If you knew which part of the spectrum was the problem it would surely help with deciding a solution? The previous poster's suggestion of UV filtering film seems like a promising idea, but it kind of depends if its UV that is the problem.

Is it any different with a CRT? Could you plug a CRT into the laptop? Because CRT's I think don't give off so much UV, they radiate in other parts of the spectrum instead.

I haven't found any doctor yet that can. Most of them understand zilch about tech, and I haven't found any medical documents online that show any scientific correlation between computers/monitors and dermatomyositis patients.

 

[wwswimming]

it sounds like you need to attenuate the amount of light coming from the monitor.

also, it sounds like it would be helpful if your mom could control the amount of attenuation, like controlling the tint on a pair of sunglasses, according to what she's looking at on the computer.

i think you can do a lot using Windows monitor & browser settings. you can control background color, e.g. gray text on a black background will radiate less light than black text on a white background.

also, if you go into display properties/ appearance/ advanced settings, you will find controls to fine-tune colors. you can pick colors that radiate less or at a more comfortable frequency.

one other thing that might help your Mom is the speech recognition features of Vista. It has very good speech recognition, similar to Dragon Pro on XP (when i bought Dragon Pro it was $700 - educational ... Vista is cheaper). she might be able to get buy with Dragon Preferred ($50 to $100). referring to Dragon Naturally Speaking from Nuance. you can set up the computer so that actions like pulling down the 'File' menu are voice activated. once you get used to it, you can do almost everything using the speech recognition. it takes some training to make it feel normal. i took a class in Dragon at the Disability Resources department at a local junior college.

the other thing i wonder about is, how sensitive is your Mom to humidity. in a lot of locales, the cold weather can suck the humidity out of the air. depending on what kind of heating they have, it's possible that affects her skin sensitivity.

 

[oynaz]

I haven't found any doctor yet that can. Most of them understand zilch about tech, and I haven't found any medical documents online that show any scientific correlation between computers/monitors and dermatomyositis patients.

Do you have a medical school, or better yet, an engineering which specializes in medical tech nearby? This is exactly the kind of problem which professors or students might find interesting.

I can provide contact to the Engeneering Collage in Copenhagen if you want it. They teach medical engineering there, and you might find someone knowledgeable who would like to help you.