By Conor Sharkey

THREE years ago, Sion Mills woman Celia Ferguson received the news we all dread. She was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. At the time of her diagnosis, Celia was working tirelessly for the betterment of the picturesque village and was a central figure in a range of projects and committees. And while many of us would have allowed the illness to take over our lives, the Director of Sion Mills Building Preservation Trust said no.

Instead of running for cover, Celia decided that she would carry on with her work, despite the difficulties brought on by the Parkinsons. Around 120,000 people in the UK have the illness, which affects activities we take for granted, such as talking, walking, swallowing and writing. Other symptoms include repetitive shaking, slowness of movement and muscle stiffness.

For Celia, the the biggest obstacle to over come was her growing difficulty with using her beloved computer.

Her work with the Sion Building Preservation Trust brought mountains of paperwork and the constant need to send and receive emails. But instead of employing someone to come in and lighten the load, Celia turned to technology in a bid to maintain her independence.

Via the 'Dragon Naturally Speaking' speech recognition programme, Celia now simply talks to her computer via a headset and it does the typing for her. She can also send emails and surf the net with the package.

Taking up the story, she said, "I used to be a really great typist and I still can type a bit, but because I have Parkinsons, my fingers tend to stay on the keys too long. Then you go to delete your mistake and you erase more than you want. It gets so frustrating.

"I'm writing a book at the minute too and it's all taken from letters written from my grandfather and other family memebers, so it does require spending long periods in front of the computer and that's where the speech recognition comes in particularly handy.

"It's an amazing piece of technology in that if it makes a mistake, I can simply tell it to go back and make a correction or do a spell check, which makes things very handy.

"I did my ECDL some years ago and becoming computer literate was the best thing I ever did. It's wonderful that this very clever piece of technology allows me to carry on what I've learnt over the years and enables me to get on with my work and writing my book," Celia said