I Spy With My Bionic Eye
Mohammed
Salim Patel explores the medical breakthrough in curing
blindness.
What many thought would be impossible, ten years ago, is
now becoming a reality. In America Bionic Eyes are now being successfully
implanted to cure blindness.
After many years of medical trials on animals, and some
human guinea pigs, there has now been a handful of successful treatments using
bionic eyes to restore vision in people who suffer from certain eye conditions.
Allen Zderad, 68, from Minnesota is one of those who has
restored partial vision due to this bionic eye called The Argus ll. He
suffers from a degenerative eye condition called Retinitis
Pigmentosa which caused his blindness. However, through this implant
he now has artificial vision which allowed him to see his wife for the first
time in ten years.
Dr Anaswami V J Kumar, a retired Consultant Opthalmologist
at the Royal Blackburn Hospital, said:
“The implant will allow the user to see things like the
frame of a door or a handle on a fridge. They can also get a sense of how many
people are standing in front of them.”
How it
works:
A patient wears a pair of glasses which are fitted with a
camera that sends a video signal to a wearable computer that the patient wears
on their hip. This computer then processes and formats the signals. That data
is then wirelessly sent to a grid of sixty electrodes which have been
surgically implanted in to the patients eye. The visual information activates
the implant to send a series of impulses to the retina. These are then
interpreted as vision by the brain.
The
Argus ll is hoped to also help those with other eye conditions such
as advanced
macular degeneration.
Zainul
Patel, 34. From Preston also suffers from Retinitis Pigmentosa,
he said:
“I am very happy to hear about this breakthrough. I have
lost my sight because of Retinitis
Pigmentosa. I can’t see my two sons or wife. It would be life changing
if the Argus ll became available through the NHS so that I could see how much
my boys have grown and see my family once again.”
This bionic eye is light at the end of the tunnel for many.
But for some seeing there wife again may be a sight for sore eyes!
To listen to the audio podcast for this edition visit:
Mashallah
ReplyDeleteAs technology advances, it is great to see companies working for partially sighted people to regain independence. Although there are many assistive technology devices for blind available, only few of them actually helps people who are visually impaired. Hopefully, as artificial vision advances, blindness will not be a disability 10 years from now.
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