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Health March 2013

Aid for Age

Technology Developing on Many Fronts to Help the Blind See Again

By Tait Trussell

Restoring sight to the blind, even where especially challenging to scientists, now is possible through a new technology. It combines an eye implant with glasses in which is enclosed a tiny video camera.

A medical breakthrough has the potential to enable the blind to see. One of the common eye diseases for seniors is macular degeneration. It is the number one cause of blindness, and it increases with age.

Seniors between the ages of 64 to 74 have a one-in-four chance of developing this disease. There are other rarer diseases, of course. Millions of dollars have been spent in efforts to find cures.

Restoring sight to the blind, even where especially challenging to scientists, now is possible through a new technology. It combines an eye implant with glasses in which is enclosed a tiny video camera.

A bionic eye has been under research for many years at large expense. A device designed to aid people with a rare eye disease awaits U.S. approval. It already has been approved in Europe. The device is called Argus II, made by Second Sight Medical Products, Inc. of Sylmar, California.

As for macular degeneration, so-called wet macular degeneration is the most dangerous form. It often is treated with laser coagulation. This can seal the abnormal blood vessels but does not restore vision.

Second Sight’s device uses a retinal prosthesis. This bypasses the dead cells — cells the eye must have to see light. The Second Sight product guides visual objects to parts of the eye that still work. The video camera in the glasses gathers visual material: the light is transmitted as an electrical signal to the parts of the eye where cells still work.

Researchers at Stanford University and the Massachusetts of Technology also are working on versions of that eye device.

An Australian woman was the first to receive the visual implant. The bionic eye was designed and built by the Bionic Vision Australia, a consortium of researchers. Equipped with 24 electrodes, the device electronically stimulates the retina. These impulses then go back to the brain creating an image. Sight is only in black and white at this stage.

Research also has been done at Cornell University by researchers who have deciphered the neural (nerve) code for the nerve from the eye to the brain to tell the brain what it sees.

The eye is like a camera. Light passes though the clear structures in the front of the eye, cornea and lens and focuses at the back of the eye on the retina. A portion of the eye called the macula allows us to see detailed “central vision.” Centralized vision includes such observing as recognizing someone’s face or reading a newspaper. The rest of the retina is for side, or peripheral, vision. Macular degeneration results in loss of central vision.

Doctors still don’t know what causes macular degeneration. If it affects one eye, the other eye can usually compensate for the loss of vision in the diseased eye, and sometimes a person doesn’t even know they have the disease.

Dry macular degeneration is a slow process but it eventually stops the macula from working. Wet macular degeneration is responsible for 90 percent of serious vision loss. A number of experimental treatments are being conducted. One treatment consists of a dye that is injected into your arm. The dye travels to the blood vessels in your eye. Photos are taken so the affected area can be seen and treated.

Your best move is to see your eye doctor on a regular basis, especially if you have any change in vision.

Meanwhile, for those eyes that are completely blind the bionic eye at some point could help hundreds of thousands of persons to see again.

 

Tait Trussell is an old guy and fourth-generation professional journalist who writes extensively about aging issues among a myriad of diverse topics.

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