KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Alphapointe provides rehabilitation services and employment for people who are visually impaired.
Inside Alphapointe, there's a newly renovated adaptive training apartment.
With several hundred square feet of space, Alphapointe states it has "modern appliances installed for activities such as cooking, doing laundry and having a dedicated workspace featuring a computer with the latest adaptive technologies such as audible software and specialized keyboards."
For nearly a month, Rykiera Murrell has been a client at Alphapointe.
For Murrell, she's taking advantage of the newly renovated apartment, starting with the apartment's dining room.
She's currently learning techniques for sitting and eating at a dinner table.
"Think of your hands as your eyes," Murrell's occupational therapist, Becky Dumsky said.
"It's been an adjustment," Murrell said.
Murrell is new to vision loss.
"In my right eye, I have blindness there. I am currently color blind," Murrell said. "Going from being sighted to having low vision and color blindness is automatically an adjustment within itself."
She said it's been interesting relearning the daily skills she's been doing for years.
"When you're sighted, you're not thinking about soup. You're not thinking about eating soup, you're just eating," Murrell said. "Coming to this adjustment, you do need someone that's encouraging and is there and understanding."
That encourager is Becky Dumsky, her occupational therapist.
"We're learning how to eat, use adaptive techniques to eat," Dumsky said."It's learning these techniques in a private place so that when she goes out with friends or family or a stranger or job interview, she's able to use those skills out in the community."
Dumsky works with about six clients a day. There are a variety of different amenities and tactics clients learn throughout the apartment, including cooking, cleaning, computer technology, laundry and more.
"For example, we put foods in as alphabetical order as we can. That way if you're looking for black beans, you'll know to go to the left instead of to the right and having to go through 20 different cans," Dumsky said. "We've got markings, we have labeling, tactile markings, we have on the stove, so they can feel it, or a high contrast."
Murell said she's grateful for her strong support team, both at Alphapointe and at home.
She said the sessions inside the adaptive apartment are encouraging.
"It's really given me a different type of confidence," Murrell said. "When you first encounter vision loss, the first thing you want to do is hide away and just kind of stay out of the way becomes my mindset because you don't want to go through that embarrassment."
While it has been an adjustment for Murrell, she said her vision loss does not define her.
"I have fun, I laugh, I joke, I get out," Murrell said. "Being low vision doesn't stop any of those things so in a way....flaws...but flawless!"
To learn more about Alphapointe and its programs, visit their website.
