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Artificial Vision for the Blind
castanaveras writes "Canadian doctors implanted an artificial eye into a blind man - it performs well enough for him to be able to drive (admittedly in an empty parking lot)." We've done lots of previous stories about bionic eyes.
Just because he was blind before doesn't mean that he doesn't have eyelids.
I think the most important part of the article was the bit about not giving false hopes to the many folks who have been blind since birth. Since they will not have developed the ability to interpret stimulii from that part of their brain, this device will do them no good.
Properly marketed though, this device could do a lot for thos who have lost their sight from disease or accident.
Hopefully as the technology develops and is refined, they will also look into researching ways for those blind from birth to use this technology as well.
When I was yonger I used to wonder whether I had the choice of losing sight or hearing which would I chose. Sight is so important to us. Yet to lose hearing would be to sacrifice music, which is my main pursuit outside of work. Also, it would be less of a step down for me to lose sight than for many people. I was born with a deformed left eye. A strip down the middle of the retina is missing, and there's a separate, more complicated problem I've never bothered to learn about as well. I used to wear plastic-, then glass-eyes to mask it. The plastic ones were made oversized and have stretched the skin around the socket, and it became painful, but that just gave me the excuse I needed to give up wearing them altogethre. I feel proud to have a problem that isn't and not cover it up, and rarely think about it, and have friends and family completely forget about it.
It's better to be born that way than to lose an eye for several reasons. Obviously, the pain and anguish of losing an eye. Also the need for people in that situation to redevelop their coordination. The only disadvantage is that if you don't develop parts of your sight while you are young - like me, you don't develop it at all. There will be a limit to which the brains of people given sight mid-life will be able to use them. Stereoscopic vision will be right out (even people with squints that come good can have problems with this, like my father), and they will never develop the coordination that somebody with childhood experience can.
Still, developments like those in this story give you a warm feeling about the positive power of our scientific endeavours, and the benefits of progress.
My former rowing coach is a dentist. Somehow years ago we got to talking about his work, and gross medical professions. Consensus among the squad was that optic surgerey was the right up there with the most squeemish of them, and he commented that in a way he wished he'd put his energy into that field rather than his own. When we asked why he responded that for the same amount of work you get to fix people's sight, and that that's one of the finest gifts you can give somebody.
:)
Believe with me, my saplings.
The problem with advances like these is that everyone looks at them and thinks, "Oh, great stuff! Before long, we'll be able to let all the blind people see."
Which may happen... or may not. But in the meantime, people see it as a little less important to make sure that the world is accessible to those who are disabled, when they're convinced that a 'cure' is right around the corner.
Cochlear implants and bionic eyes and so on and so forth... they all sound terrific. And there will be people helped by these advances. Just don't let yourselves get caught expecting too much of them. And remember, programmers and designers out there, to make sure that your projects are accessible. Text needs to be readable by a screen-reader. Audio should have available captions. All that jazz.