A white cane is used by many people who are blind or visually impaired. Its primary uses are as a mobility tool and as a courtesy to others, but there are at least five varieties, each serving a slightly different need.
Long Cane: This "traditional" white cane, also known as a "Hoover" cane, after Dr. Richard Hoover, is designed primarily as a mobility tool used to detect objects in the path of a user. Cane length depends upon the height of a user, and traditionally extends from the floor to the user's sternum. Some organisations favor the use of much longer canes.

Depending on how disability is defined, global figures estimate that 200 million children experience some form of disability. (UNESCO - Education for all global monitoring report 2010: Reaching the marginalized). However, statistics on incidence and prevalence of childhood disabilities are slim and assumptions often lie within large ranges of uncertainty and are outdated (UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre - Promoting the Rights of Children with Disabilities (2007). Children with single or multiple forms of physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impariments can become disabled if attitudinal and environmental barriers deny their human rights, hinder access to basic services and foreclose equal participation.

Albinism in humans is a congenital disorder characterized by the complete or partial absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes. Albinism is associated with a number of vision defects, such as photophobia, nystagmus, and amblyopia. Lack of skin pigmentation makes for more susceptibility to sunburn and skin cancers. In rare cases such as Chédiak–Higashi syndrome, albinism may be associated with deficiencies in the transportation of melanin granules. This also affects essential granules present in immune cells leading to increased susceptibility to infection.