Voice typing for IBM
Voice typing for the condition that makes typing the hardest part.
Inclusion Body Myositis takes a quiet path through the hand and forearm flexors — the exact muscles you have used to type your entire adult life. CaringDictate replaces the keyboard with your voice, anywhere on Windows. We built it because someone we love has IBM.
IBM makes typing slow long before it makes anything else slow.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association describes the progression simply: progressive weakness in the hands and fingers causes problems with typing, writing, pinching, and buttoning. Other things still work. The mind is sharp. Speech is normal. Walking may be slower but it is fine. The thing that is gone is the unconscious flow of your fingers across a keyboard.
For people who built careers and friendships and creative lives on top of that flow, the slowing is profound. It is not the kind of thing you complain about — you just find that some emails never get sent, some notes never get written, some thoughts that used to land on the page now stay in your head.
CaringDictate exists because of this. The first user is a man with IBM whose typing had slowed to the point that his evenings were eaten by a backlog of messages and meeting notes. With voice typing he got those evenings back. He could finish a day's worth of writing in the time it used to take to write a single long email. The software is built for the long, slow arc of IBM — one payment, lifetime updates, designed to last as long as the condition does.
How CaringDictate helps
Built for what inclusion body myositis actually changes about typing.
Built for the IBM hand-weakness pattern.
Inclusion Body Myositis targets the finger flexors and forearm flexors first — exactly the muscles you use to type. Voice typing skips them entirely.
Works in everything you already use.
Email, Word, Teams chat, Zoom chat, online forms, search bars — CaringDictate types into any focused text field on Windows. No new software to learn.
Designed for the long arc of IBM.
IBM progresses slowly. CaringDictate is one payment, lifetime updates, no subscription — so the cost never rises as the condition does.
Built because someone we love has IBM.
The first user of CaringDictate is a 65-plus-year-old man with Inclusion Body Myositis. His evening fatigue from typing is the reason this software exists.
What people with IBM use it for
Real things, written every day, without the keyboard.
- Meeting notes at work or volunteer roles. Capture what was said without the multi-hour typing tax afterward. The notes are remarkably accurate, in our experience.
- Emails to family and old colleagues. Keep relationships intact without losing an evening to a single message.
- Teams chat and Signal messages. The quick coordination work that piles up when typing is slow — voice typing makes it instant again.
- Insurance forms, medical portals, banking sites. The boxes are small and the deadlines are real. CaringDictate types into any field on any website.
- Writing a memoir, journal, or family history. Stories that would otherwise stay in your head can be set down at the pace you actually want.
Questions families ask
Questions about CaringDictate and Inclusion Body Myositis
My hand and forearm flexors are very weak. Will voice typing be enough?
For most people with IBM, yes — especially during the long middle phase of the disease. IBM progresses slowly compared to ALS, and voice typing essentially eliminates the load on finger and forearm flexors. You may still want to use a comfortable mouse, but the keyboard becomes optional. CaringDictate works with any USB or Bluetooth headset microphone, which most IBM users find more comfortable than a desk mic for long sessions.
Does it work for technical or work meetings where I need shorthand?
It transcribes whatever you say. If you say "open paren" it types "(". If you say "new paragraph" it inserts a paragraph break. You can also custom-add words to the recognition vocabulary if you work with industry-specific terms (medication names, legal terms, software product names). For most users, the default vocabulary is enough — Whisper Large v3 Turbo was trained on a very broad text corpus.
My typing has gotten slow but still works. Is it worth switching?
Probably yes, and here is why: most people who try voice typing find that the cognitive load of typing was higher than they realized. Writing flows differently when you speak it. Many of our early IBM users tell us they prefer voice typing for longer messages even when their hands are having a good day, simply because the writing feels less effortful. The 30-day refund means you can find out without committing.
Are there occupational therapists I should mention this to?
Yes. Occupational therapy clinics increasingly recommend voice typing as an early intervention for IBM, ALS, MS, and other progressive conditions affecting fine motor control. We are happy to send a printable one-pager to an OT — email us at hello@caringdictate.com and we will send you something you can print or forward.
How does CaringDictate compare to Dragon NaturallySpeaking for IBM?
Dragon was the gold standard for many years, but Microsoft has frozen Dragon Professional Individual at version 16 since 2023 and discontinued Dragon Home entirely. The remaining Dragon products are either expensive enterprise medical software or a cloud-only mobile subscription. CaringDictate is built on more modern recognition technology (Whisper Large v3 Turbo, the same engine used by major transcription services), costs $49 once instead of $699, and is designed for the way IBM specifically affects typing.
Will it learn my voice over time?
Whisper recognition does not require a training corpus the way old Dragon did — it works well on most voices out of the box. You can add specific terms to a personal dictionary file if you have unusual vocabulary (names, places, technical terms). We are also building a feature that learns your common phrases over time, which will ship as a free update.