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Healthcare technology
A World Full of Colour: How
do Colour Blind Glasses Actually Work?
Colour, for those who can experience it, is the defying flavour of our surroundings. It has a proven psychological impact, each nuance has deep-rooted literary meanings and it continues to play a major role in humanities perception of the world. There are those, however, who cannot enjoy the various tones of life due to colour- blindness. Thankfully, scientist have recently come up with a solution: a special pair of glasses or lenses that allows colour-blind users to observe the details they were never able to notice before. But how do these peculiar instruments really work? In this article I will be explaining the technique behind this important creation.
Understanding Colour Blindness
To talk about colour-blind glasses, we need to talk about colour-blindness first. Colour-blindness is a deficiency in vision that affects certain light-sensitive cones in the retina. The wave light sensitive cells might not exist or present mutations, resulting in an inability to send correct stimuli through the optic nerve to the brain. The deficiency manifest as a difficulty to distinguish certain colours from others, but, in rarer cases, it can mean not being able to perceive colour in any sense. Colour-blindness is often inherited, meaning it is passed down through families, but it can also be caused by other external or internal factors, such as chronic illnesses, accidents, the coming in contact with some substances and, sometimes, aging.
There are four main types of colour blindness: • Protanopia(the inability to perceive red light), • Deuteranopia(the inability to perceive green light), • Tritanopia(the inability to perceive blue light), • Monochromacy(the perception of no colour).
All of these colour blindnesses can appear simultaneously in people within various ranges of severity, with the exception of monochromacy.
Colour Blindness Glasses and How They Really Function
Anywhere we go, we are surrounded by a multitude of light waves with various intensities. For people suffering from colour vision deficiencies, the quantity and variety is overwhelming for the eye, leading to the overlap of certain colours during optic processing. Colour blind glasses have lenses that filter out the wavelengths of light, altering the signal to certain photoreceptors cones so there is greater colour contrast for the ”confusing”
nuances.
The glasses don’t solve colour blindness entirely; they do, however, enhance the hue vision of the individual. By creating a higher grade of contrast, people can distinguish between perceived tones and maybe even navigate the world with a vision sense closer to the one individual without colour blindness experience. Knowing what colour your facing is an advantage non-colour-blind people usually dismiss, but, as stated previously, nuances trace our environment. From styling our clothes to understanding an art piece, colour rules big and small aspects of everyone’s life.
The Big Downsides
Colour blind glasses, like every great invention, have problems, but perhaps the biggest one of all is the supposed efficiency of these devices. Some scepticism remains on the real benefits of using colour blind glasses, as the lenses can only manage to enhance hue discrimination, not cure the deficiency. Another letdown is the price, that, depending on were the purchase is made, can range from 100$ to 400$ or even more. This is not a small amount to pay, especially for something that has yet to prove a concrete scientific advantage.
Conclusion
Colour blind glasses provide a revolutionary way of looking at colour blindness, irigardless of their functionality.
The invention has the potential of opening a new door in the chapter of research on this deficiency. While putting forward more then a few disadvantages, this invention also manages to help reduce the troubles colour blind people have to face on a daily basis. If more will be done to improve the quality of life for those suffering from this condition, and if these glasses will have a big role to play in further development, it is for the future to tell.